Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Wednesday at Seven o'clock.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE

Retirement Pensions

Mr. McKay: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether he will consider bringing in, under Section 29 of the Act of 1946, regulations which will allow for payment of the retired pension to men and women who have gone abroad but who were entitled to the retirement pension and received it whilst residing in the United Kingdom and who have reached an age when, if living here, there would be no restrictions on their earnings and thus they would need no supervision.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): Regulations made under the Section referred to have always provided for the payment of retirement pensions, without the age restriction suggested, in Commonwealth countries and, since 1955, in foreign countries as well.

Mr. McKay: If that is so concerning people's pensions, what about the increases which have taken place since these people went abroad? I have the case of No. 3250843, who complains that

since he went abroad he cannot get the increases which have been given. Can the right hon. Gentleman explain the peculiar situation in which a man can get the main pension but not the increases?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That has been the position since the increase made at the beginning of the scheme in 1946. Persons, such as those referred to in the Question, who have drawn the pension in this country are able to draw it abroad, as my Answer states. If, however, they are abroad at the time an increase is made, they do not get that increase.

Child Allowances

Mr. Royle: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance how many families of United States servicemen in the United Kingdom are in receipt of child allowances for children born in this country; and how many families of British Service men stationed abroad are in receipt of child allowances for children on overseas stations.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I regret that the information asked for in the first part of the Question is not available, but I have no reason to think that the number is other than small. As to the second part, British Service men stationed abroad with their families normally re-receive family allowances under arrangements made by the Service Departments.

Mr. Royle: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is rather preposterous that these highly paid American service men should be receiving allowances from our Treasury at times like this? Will not he do something better for our Service men who are serving abroad with their families to ensure that they get child allowances?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman asked me for numbers, but as he has now asked me for a comment I cannot do better than give him the comment which was made from the Front Bench opposite by the noble Lady, Lady Summerskill, when this Question was last asked two years ago. She pointed out that the majority of wives of American service men in this category are almost certainly British girls.

Sickness Benefit (Students)

Mr. Royle: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he is aware that nurses who are taking the course of twelve months' duration for the health visitor certificate and other students similarly placed are deprived of health benefit for one year after completing the courses and during the year of the training; and what steps he will take to entitle them to benefit during this period.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In general, nurses taking the course referred to in the Question remain eligible for sickness benefit provided that the appropriate contributions are made by them or on their behalf. The position is, of course, the same for other students similarly placed.

Mr. Royle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that invariably these contributions are not made and this leaves the students in a very difficult position in many cases? Will not he think about this matter once more and realise that these students are fitting themselves to he of service to the country and therefore should not have to put up with this difficulty?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am afraid that, in a contributory scheme, if the benefits are to be drawn, the contributions must be kept up, but in this category, which consists mainly of nurses who have been in employment as nurses for some years already, I understand that it is sometimes possible to continue the Class 1 contribution, as some local authorities do on their behalf, or, as other local authorities do, including the hon. Gentleman's local authority, advise them to keep up Class 3 contributions.

Insurance Cards (Stamps)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he is aware that a number of workers formerly employed by U-Plan Limited, of 103 Queen's Road, Upton Park, have had their cards returned to them insufficiently stamped, with in some cases as many as three months' stamps missing: and what action he is taking.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Yes, Sir. Action is being taken by my Department to recover the arrears of National Insurance

contributions. The benefit position of the employees will not be prejudiced in any way.

Prescription Charges

Mr. Jeger: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (1) the number, and amount, of National Health Service prescription charges refunded by the National Assistance Board in Goole and Knottingley, respectively, to persons not in receipt of National Assistance supplementation during each of the last two years;
(2) the number, and amount, of National Health Service prescription charges refunded by the National Assistance Board in Thorne to persons not in receipt of National Assistance supplementation during each of the last two years.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): Separate figures are not available for the places mentioned as Thorne is only part of an area served by the National Assistance Board's office in Goole and Knottingley a small part of the area served by another office. The figures for the Goole office are £33 in 1959 and £18 in 1960, representing 660 and 360 prescription items, respectively.

Mr. Jeger: In view of these large figures for such small communities, does not the right hon. Lady appreciate that a large saving in time, trouble and administrative expense would result from the abolition of these restrictive charges?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I do not think the hon. Member can really consider that these are large figures over the whole year when there are over 3,000 people on National Assistance in the area.

Mr. Houghton: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether he will circulate with the OFFICIAL REPORT a draft of the proposed leaflet to be issued informing those not currently on National Assistance how, and in what personal circumstances they can claim a refund of prescription charges.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am informed by the National Assistance Board that it is preparing a new leaflet which will include the required information. I will arrange for a copy to be placed in the


Library as soon as it is available and I will, of course, send the hon. Member a copy.

Mr. Houghton: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether his consultations with the Chairman of the National Assistance Board have been concluded on a simplified procedure for claiming refunds of prescription charges by those not currently on National Assistance but where hardship may exist; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The procedure for claiming refund of prescription charges by those not already receiving National Assistance has been fully explained by my right hon. Friends the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland. I do not know what simpler procedure the hon. Member has in mind.

Mr. Houghton: If the right hon. Gentleman looks on the Order Paper, he will see at least one suggestion from some of his hon. Friends. Is not the Minister aware that the procedure which has already been explained to the House will be cumbersome and wasteful of time and of money in administrative cost? Is he not aware that it will involve either a visit to the National Assistance office or a visit from the National Assistance office to the person, or both? Is the Minister not aware that many hon. Members, on both sides, are looking for something simpler and more easily understood and a method that will give the refund without all this complicated paraphernalia to get back the prescription charge?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Neither the suggestion on the Order Paper nor the suggestion made by the hon. Member has anything to do with the Question on the Order Paper. The Motion on the Order Paper would eliminate both refund and reference to the National Assistance Board, whereas the hon. Member's Question includes both.
[That this House is of the opinion that persons of limited means should not he required to apply to the National Assistance Board for the refund of National Health Service charges, but that instead all persons entitled to treatment under the National Health Service whose total net income is below an agreed income tax

code number or its equivalent shall, on production of evidence of that income rating, be excused payment of all National Health Service charges.]

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what was the number and amount of National Health Service prescription charges refunded during 1959 and 1960 to war pensioners.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The amount refunded was about £30,000 in each year. Figures are not available as to the number of war pensioners concerned.

Mr. Lipton: Do not these figures indicate that many war pensioners either do not know or have forgotten that they are entitled to claim refund for their prescriptions pertaining to their war disabilities? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in connection with the circular to which he has just referred, take steps to ensure that war pensioners are reminded, particularly now that the cost of prescriptions is going up, that they are entitled to a refund on prescriptions?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not think that one can draw the inference the hon. Member does from the figures, but I will bear the hon. Member's practical suggestion in mind.

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will make a statement about his discussions with the National Assistance Board regarding prescription charges.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not know what discussions the hon. Member has in mind. The National Assistance Board will continue to discharge their duty to relieve need.

Mr. Allaun: I was referring to the discussions which I thought were suggested last week, but I want to ask the Minister, if there are to be any prescription charges at all—which we challenge—does he not think that the most unfair, unpopular, unpleasant, impractical and inconvenient way is the present method and that the least so would be the proposal that all those below a certain net income for tax purposes should be exempt? Will he consider that proposal? Was it discussed previously?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It was not a proposal, whether it has merit or not, for me to consider. I am answering in this respect on behalf of the National Assistance Board in the discharge of its duty to relieve need. Proposals which would exclude the National Assistance Board would, of course, be entirely beyond my compass or responsibility.

Mr. Millan: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will give an estimate of the administrative and other costs, per prescription charge refunded, of the National Assistance Board in investigating claims for refund from persons not in receipt of National Assistance.

Mr. Manuel: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what is the estimated administrative cost to the National Assistance Board of assessing the income of applicants for refund of National Health Service charges who were not in receipt of National Assistance during each of the past two years.

Mr. Small: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what is the estimated average administrative cost to the National Assistance Board in assessing the income of an applicant for refund of National Health Service prescription charges who is not currently in receipt of National Assistance supplementation.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It is not possible to make an accurate apportionment of the estimated total administrative costs as between different classes of recipient and the different processes of dealing with an application.

Mr. Millan: Yes, but is not the cost in this case going to be very high in view of the cumbersome method of administration? Is not the Minister aware that there is a considerable feeling even on his side of the House about this? Is he going to try to make any real effort to get a less cumbersome method of administration?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I can answer as to the total cost, but I cannot break it down into the various precise components in the three Questions. As I have already indicated, my responsibility in this matter is on behalf of the National Assistance Board, and its

methods of relieving need, in whatever way it arises, have stood the test of experience.

Mr. Manuel: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that there is a considerable difference in the three Questions he is answering? The first deals with the administrative cost of prescription charges per single items. Mine deals with the whole of the administrative cost of the refund of National Health Service charges for those not in receipt of National Assistance. The third is about the average. As I estimate the figure as a large one, does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not think that he should consult his right hon. Friend to obtain some better administrative arrangement which would save money and be fair to the applicants?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman underrates the precision of his Question. It asked me for the cost of assessing the income of applicants. That is, of course, only part of the process. As for the rest of the supplementary question, I have already answered it in replying to his hon. Friend.

Mr. Manuel: I do not think so.

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will state the numbers and amounts of National Health Service prescription charges refunded in Kent to persons not in receipt of National Assistance supplement during the past two years; and what increase is anticipated in this respect as a consequence of the proposed increases.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The County of Kent is served by fifteen offices of the National Assistance Board of which two also serve a part of Sussex. In the area served by these fifteen offices, the figures asked for are £1,280 in 1959 and £1,080 in 1960, representing rather more than 25,000 and 21,000 prescription items respectively. Some increase in the number of applications for refund may be expected.

Mr. Dodds: While thanking the right hon. Lady for that information, may I ask whether it is not inevitable that increased charges will encourage an ever-increasing number of people above the


National Assistance Board's scales to send in their applications for refund by post because of the distaste for going to any of the premises, and since the National Assistance Board cannot give any money without an inquiry, which may entail one or more visits to the home, is it not obvious that the staffs will have to be increased to do the job, if the offices are not over-staffed now? Does not the money entailed make nonsense of the claim that this is to save money? Or does it not expose the plot really to have a smack at the National Health scheme?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: Most people who will be receiving these refunds are normally on National Assistance and are people who have been served in this way by the National Assistance Board under the present Regulations. There may possibly be a few additional applications but I cannot share the hon. Member's view that there will be a great increase in numbers that will overweigh the staff, or that the Board will not be able to deal with the matter.

Mrs. Braddock: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what arrangements are made to pay a prescription charge, before the prescription is obtained, where the patient cannot afford to pay for it in advance.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In a case of urgent need, payment may be made at once on application at the Board's area office.

Mrs. Braddock: Yes, but is not the Minister aware that this is a really important matter, that many people, when they get their prescriptions, find they have not the money to pay for them? Is there not a simpler way of dealing with the matter than requiring that the person who has a prescription or a relative should go to the National Assistance Board or wait for an Assistance Board officer to come before he obtains his prescription? Surely the time has arrived when some simpler method ought to be found in cases of this sort?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Lady will be aware that this is the method which has been working for a number of years.

Mrs. Braddock: Very seldom, indeed.

Mr. Prentice: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what was the number and amount of National Health Service prescription charges paid in advance by the National Assistance Board in each of the past two years on behalf of persons not currently in receipt of National Assistance supplementation.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am afraid this information is not available.

Mr. Prentice: Is the Minister aware that the Minister of Health placed a lot of importance on this arrangement in recent debates? If the information is not available, how can we judge whether this method really will be capable of relieving hardship? Will not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the figures are very small indeed and will make very little impression on hardship?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have given a good many figures on this matter, but in the form the hon. Member has asked for them and for reasons which I think he understands, they are not available.

Mr. Lawson: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether a separate income assessment is made by officers of the National Assistance Board in respect of each application for refund of National Health Service prescription charges made by persons not currently in receipt of National Assistance supplementation.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If refunds are needed at frequent intervals, the Board's officer will not normally require more, on the second and subsequent occasion, than a simple statement that the person's circumstances are unchanged.

Mr. Lawson: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that if these refunds are not made at very frequent intervals a highly paid civil servant will be calling upon the person concerned to make such an assessment and perhaps spend half a morning doing it? Is not this a very Irish way of saving money? Would it not be more sensible to cut out the 2s. charge altogether?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Unlike the hon. Member, I shall not introduce nationalistic adjectives, but he underrates the speed with which experienced officers of the National Assistance Board deal with their duties.

Mr. Ross: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will estimate the average and total cost to his Department of investigations of applications for assistance in respect of prescription charges, dental charges and optical charges, respectively.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As regards grants in respect of charges for prescriptions, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply on Friday, 24th February, to the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd). As regards dental and optical charges the estimated total administrative costs are, respectively, about £27,000 and £86,000 a year, which have to be set against grants totalling £387,000 and £651,000, respectively, in 1960 and thus represent a little under 1d. and a little over 1½d. per shilling paid.

Pneumoconiosis

Mr. Stones: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what special qualifications and training are required by persons appointed to pneumoconiosis panels responsible to his Department for the diagnosis and certification of pneumoconiosis incidental to the coal mining industry.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Persons appointed to the pneumoconiosis panels will be required to have, in addition to their academic medical qualifications, a sound clinical knowledge of general medicine and special knowledge of chest diseases. On appointment training is given in all the specialised aspects of the work of the panels, including the effects of the various dust hazards in different parts of the country. The doctors also keep in close touch with all the current developments in relation to pneumoconiosis and other respiratory diseases.

Mr. Stones: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the grave concern in the coalfields regarding the number of miners whose chest complaints have been wrongly diagnosed? Can he assure the House that all persons appointed to the pneumoconiosis medical panels will be given the fullest advantage of all the latest information and knowledge concerning this disease with a view to ensuring proper diagnosis as far as is humanly possible?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I certainly give the hon. Member that assurance. In

addition, he will know that considerable and impressive research work is being undertaken by the Medical Research Council's establishment at Llandough.

Welfare Foods

Mr. Redhead: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what recent instructions have been sent to his local offices concerning the issue of welfare food coupons to expectant mothers.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Following the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health on 1st February, 1961, concerning welfare foods, local offices of my Department were instructed that vitamin token books issued in future should not contain tokens giving entitlement beyond 31st May, 1961.

Mr. Redhead: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the effect of these instructions is to deny to expectant mothers the opportunity, which they have hitherto enjoyed, of drawing upon their allotment for orange juice, cod liver oil and vitamin tablets in any quantity and at any time they like? Can he say under what authority intending charges in the relevant orders are being anticipated before they have been approved by this House?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I know of no legal provision laying down that the books should be of any particular duration. It is a matter of practical convenience. I should have thought that it would be quite wrong and misleading to some of the ladies concerned to have issued books carrying tokens beyond the date at which my right hon. Friend has announced that the scheme will cease.

Mr. K. Robinson: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my hon. Friend's Question about the propriety of his action in anticipating the decision of the House? Does he not also think that this is an incredibly mean step? Could he not allow these welfare foods to expectant mothers at the old price for the whole term of their pregnancy? Would not the cost of this be utterly trivial?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: There is no question of anticipating the decision of the House. If the scheme should continue beyond 31st May, it would be perfectly practicable to issue further books. Concerning the propriety, I would have thought it quite wrong, as I said in my


earlier answer, to issue books which my right hon. Friend had already indicated would be misleading.

War Disabled

Mr. Eden: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he is aware that the burdens of amputation and limb wearing increase substantially with age; and what further change he will make in the scale of war pensions and allowances to take account of this.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: All limbless pensioners will benefit from the improvements in war pensions and allowances to take effect in April. In addition, as my hon. Friend is aware, elderly limbless pensioners are among those of the severely war disabled who benefit from the age allowance which I introduced in 1957; the number of these allowances in payment has now reached 69,000.

Mr. Eden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it still appears that the qualifying age of 65 is too high and that many of the First World War limbless pensioners are not able to survive to that age? In view of the serious hardship which is caused to elderly people as a result of these war injuries, will not my right hon. Friend consider introducing some kind of increased assessment with advancing age rather than fix a qualifying age?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The view which my hon. Friend has expressed that the effect of disablement grows with age is. when one applies the Royal Warrant test of comparison with a fit man of the same age, one on which medical opinion is far from being unanimous. I am, however, more concerned with the purely practical step, which the age allowance represented, of making additional provision for those who, being at the age of 65 and above, clearly are for every human reason entitled to particular and special consideration.

Mr. Eden: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what steps he has taken to ensure that all war disability pensioners receive the improved pensions and allowances to which they are entitled.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As soon as practicable after the new rates of pension come into force, I propose to send to all

war Disablement pensioners individually a new leaflet giving up-to-date information about the improved pensions and allowances. This leaflet, as previous leaflets have done, will remind pensioners that if they feel that they may possibly be entitled to higher pensions or additional allowances, or need help of any kind, they should let us know. In addition, there is continuous consideration of individual cases with the help of my department's welfare officers, of war pensions committees, voluntary bodies, and. if I may be allowed gratefully to add, hon. Members.

Mr. Eden: Whilst I appreciate what my right hon. Friend has said and am grateful for it, may I ask whether he does not recall that past experience has shown that a considerable number of cases have not been receiving the full assessment to which they were entitled until the matter has been brought to the attention of the Ministry? Can my right hon. Friend instruct his Department to hold a regular review of all these cases to ensure that as they become entitled to increased assessments they get what they are entitled to get without having to draw the attention of the Department to it?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: My hon. Friend cannot really base the view that a substantial number of pensioners are not getting their entitlement merely on the fact that sympathetic consideration and the doctrine of the benefit of the doubt often enable me to increase assessments or make awards where they have been refused. It does not follow from that. I am at least as anxious as is my hon. Friend to ensure that every pensioner gets what we would all wish him to have, and I shall continue to administer the Department on that basis.

Mr. Prentice: Will the Minister take special steps to draw the attention of pensioners to the supplementary allowances, and particularly the allowance for lowered standard of occupation? This is a complicated allowance and the numbers receiving it are a very small percentage of the whole. Does not the Minister agree that many pensioners would qualify for this allowance but do not know about it?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I agree with the hon. Member that it is probably the


most complicated in the whole of the Royal Warrant. I will certainly bear in mind what he said in framing the new leaflet which I announced.

Old-age Pensions (Representations)

Mr. Millan: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what representations he has had from Glasgow Corporation about the delay in the payment of increased old-age pensions; and what has been his reply.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The Corporation of Glasgow wrote to me on this subject on 16th February a letter containing an allegation to this effect. They have been informed that I have noted their views.

Mr. Millan: Is the Minister aware that many of us are still getting a considerable number of representations about this matter? Is he aware of the intense feeling among old-age pensioners about the meanness of the Government in delaying these increases till the end of the winter?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: On the contrary, I think that the great majority of retirement pensioners recognise that this is a big step forward and an increase in real standards.

Graduated Pension Scheme

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance how many civil servants, teachers and other employees of public authorities have now contracted out of the graduated pension scheme.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Up to last Friday, 1,417,858.

Mr. Hynd: Does this mean that 1,417,000 public employees as well as, I believe, some 2 million workers in private industry now agree with the Labour Party that this scheme is a swindle and that they could get better conditions elsewhere?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It means, on the contrary, if one looks at the figures, that the estimate in the original White Paper, "Provision for Old Age", was of really quite startling accuracy.

Mr. Eden: Does not the large number of public employees contracting out as

compared with the number of private employees contracting out indicate that the method for contracting out is still highly complicated and that in order further to facilitate more contracting out in private industry it might be advisable to consider redrafting some of the contracting out provisions?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I should hate to accept my hon. Friend's implication that private industry is less capable of dealing with complexity than public authorities.

National Assistance

Mr. Ross: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will estimate the number of persons presently in receipt of National Assistance supplement to National Insurance benefits who will fail to qualify for supplement when benefits and scales are adjusted in April.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: About 30,000.

Mr. Ross: Does the right hon. Gentleman not appreciate that these people will be subjected to the clumsy and, to his Ministry, costly procedure of applying for a refund? Cannot he think of a way of simplifying matters in respect of people whom he knows will be on the borderline?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If some of these 30,000 should find it necessary in the near future to make application, it would seem that in a good many cases the Board, as they had recently been on its books, would have particulars about them which would obviate a great deal of work.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL

Coal Technology

Mr. Pearl asked: the Minister of Power what representations he has made to encourage improved studies in coal technology at universities and colleges of advanced technology.

The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Wood): I would refer the hon. Member to my reply on the 20th February to the hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart).

Mr. Peart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the annual report of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy states:
We have invited the Ministry and the University Grants Committee to consider ways of strengthening studies in coal technology at universities or Colleges of Advanced Technology.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Council agreed that this matter was urgent and suggested that representations should be made to colleges and universities which are situated near coalmining centres? Is anything being done?

Mr. Wood: As the hon. Member knows, a great deal of research is already being supported by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the University Grants Committee and so on. There is, therefore, quite a lot of exploration to be done to see in what directions and by what means these efforts can be best supplemented.

Mr. Peart: Is the right hon. Gentleman considering making representations directly to the colleges of advanced technology and universities concerned?

Mr. Wood: My scientific adviser has been discussing this matter with university departments and I hope that it will be possible to increase efforts in this direction.

Collieries (Coal Dust)

Mr. Stones: asked the Minister of Power, having regard to the report of the findings of a public inquiry into the causes of a recent colliery explosion in Monmouthshire, whether he is satisfied that the present regulations relating to coal dust accumulations and concentrations in mine roadways are adequate; and what consideration is being given to the need for amending such regulations.

Mr. Wood: Regulations recently made requiring the erection of stone dust barriers on conveyor roads will increase safety in the mines. Further research into the problem of coal dust explosions is taking place both here and abroad, and I intend to see that the regulations are suitably amended in the light of any new knowledge that accumulates.

Mr. Stones: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask whether he will accept my assurance that anything done by his Department

in conjunction with the National Coal Board which will lessen the risk of the occurrence of the drastic loss of life sustained in a coalmining explosion, such as the one to which I have referred in the Question, will be deeply appreciated not only in the mining communities but throughout the country?

Mr. Wood: I will certainly bear that in mind, but I think that the hon. Member will agree that it is too early to think of amending regulations which came into force only five months ago.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF POWER

Electricity Supplies (National Parks and Trust Lands)

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Power if he is aware that electricity boards are refusing to supply electricity to potential consumers in certain areas comprised in the National Trust or National Parks where the appropriate planning authority will not allow pole electricity supply; if he is further aware that this procedure prevents many cottages, farmers and other potential consumers getting a service in these National Trust or National Park areas; and if he will consult with the appropriate Electricity Boards with a view to issuing a general direction to the hoards under section eight of the Electricity Act, 1957, to take steps to supply electricity by appropriate means to all farms and villages in National Parks and in National Trust land.

Mr. Wood: It would be impossible to frame a general direction which would take account of the differing circumstances of each case. It is for the boards to arrange their programmes in consultation with the various interests concerned, and I am not aware of any general difficulties of the kind to which the hon. Member refers.

Mr. Davies: Whilst thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether he is not aware that hon. Members on both sides of the House have met difficulties on this subject in areas where there are National Parks or National Trust properties? Would he therefore take the initiative in forming some plan whereby a little harmonious co-operation and mutual assistance can he obtained between the two authorities, which would enable the electricity boards


to meet their obligations under the Act to supply electricity? If there must be underground cables, could not a grant towards the cost be provided so that small farmers and cottagers in places like Merebrook, Eaton and the Roaches may have a supply? Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that these people will have to exist without electricity for generations if the Government do not act?

Mr. Wood: This is the first time that the particular difficulties in the hon. Member's constituency have been brought to my notice. In general, the boards have two main duties which must be reconciled. One is to produce an economical supply of electricity, and the other is to safeguard amenities while carrying out the first duty. Their job is to try to preserve a reasonable balance between the two. I have consulted the Electricity Council and I am satisfied that the boards try to preserve that reasonable balance.

Sir G. Nicholson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that my quarrel with him is on quite different ground, to the effect that his Ministry is inclined to ignore amenities? Is he aware that there is strong feeling in Haslemere on the part of my constituents at the failure to use underground cables? Will my right hon. Friend pay careful attention to the need to preserve trees and features of natural beauty which if destroyed will take many generations to replace

Mr. Wood: My hon. Friend's question shows the difficulty of keeping this balance.

Mr. Peart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Borrowdale an inquiry has been going on which deals with this very problem? Will he look at this matter again and will he expedite a decision on the inquiry?

Mr. Wood: The inquiry has been concluded. I hope that a report will be presented to me before long, when I shall be able to take a decision.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF AVIATION

Princess Flying Boats

Mr. Marsh: asked the Minister of Aviation (1) what was the cost to the taxpayer of the Princess flying boats;
(2) what offers have been made for the purchase of the Princess flying boats.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): About £9,127,000, including storage costs, has been spent on the aircraft to date. Since 5th December, 1960, when my right hon. Friend announced that these aircraft would be offered for sale, details have been widely advertised, at home and overseas. Some inquiries have already been received. Formal invitations to tender will later be issued to those who are interested. It is unlikely that any specific offers will be received until then.

Mr. Marsh: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that £9 million have been spent over ten years while the Government have been trying to make up their mind? Does he not think that the Government should make up their mind about these flying boats? Does he not agree that it should not be beyond the wit of Her Majesty's Government to come to a speedy conclusion on this matter? In view of the Government's difficulties in finding £5 million extra for increased hospital building, cannot the hon. Gentleman consider this as a matter of urgency and lay dawn a specific date by which the matter will have been settled and the taxpayer will have had some return on the £9 million?

Mr. Rippon: The hon. Member will appreciate that the total cost arises out of the original decision of the Labour Government in 1946. The storage cost of £5,000 per annum seems quite reasonable, bearing in mind the various proposals that we have had from time to time.

Mr. Strachey: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that many defence experts are now interested in just this type of slow-flying aircraft of very great duration and possibly seaborne for military purposes? Will he look at this point, and if it turns out that there is no military use of any sort for them, would he not consider it better to write them off?

Mr. Rippon: There is no current use for these aircraft or a use envisaged. All the various people who see a great future for them will have an opportunity of tendering.

Mr. Paget: In view of the fact that these aircraft have become such a well-known feature of the Solent landscape,


would not the hon. Gentleman consider consulting the Commissioners for Ancient Monuments?

Mr. Rippon: No, Sir.

Mr. Marsh: Is it possible for the House to have any explanation why it has taken ten years for the Government to make up their mind about these aircraft?

Mr. Rippon: Various proposals have been considered but, unfortunately, none of them has materialised.

Premises, Glasgow

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Aviation what use he has in view for the Government premises in Netherauldhouse Road in Glasgow, S.3, now being vacated by Messrs. John MacDonald.

Mr. Rippon: We are seeking the views of the Glasgow Corporation as local planning authority about the permissible use of the premises, and shall then offer them for sale by public auction.

Mr. Rankin: When it comes to that stage, would the hon. Gentleman keep in mind that at the moment nearly all the large petrol companies are already in the race to acquire these premises and that in that area of Glasgow we have all the petrol stations that are necessary as far as one can see into the future? Would he consider an alternative suggestion? Would he get into touch with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and suggest that he should acquire the premises as a motor vehicle testing station fully equipped with ramps, steam jenny and so on, something which is badly needed in Glasgow in view of the regulations which are now coming into force?

Mr. Rippon: It is for these very reasons that we are getting in touch with the Glasgow Corporation.

Joint Space Research Programme

Sir B. Janner: asked the Minister of Aviation if he has now had replies from the Governments concerned about a joint space research programme; and if he will now make a further statement, with particular regard to the bearing of such a programme on the development of communications.

The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): No, Sir. The Anglo-French proposals were finally presented to the other Governments concerned following the Strasbourg Conference. We have asked them to consider the proceedings at that conference and we hope to receive their replies next month.

Freight Rates

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Minister of Aviation what action he proposes to take on air-freight rates following the failure of the recent International Air Transport Association cargo conference in Paris to reach a common policy.

Mr. Thorneycroft: The failure to reach agreement affects the transatlantic services only. I welcome the obvious desire of the airlines to cut freight rates. I am keeping in touch with the United Kingdom airlines concerned and will consider what action if any I should take in the light of the situation as it develops.

Mr. Chetwynd: Has not the Minister yet had an approach from B.O.A.C. to allow it to go ahead with fixing its own freight rates? In view of the potential of this traffic, will he reach a speedy conclusion on this matter?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I have received the Corporation's proposals. I shall certainly consider them sympathetically.

British European Airways (Aircraft)

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Minister of Aviation what action he is taking to implement the undertaking to purchase three Handley Page Heralds for operation by British European Airways; and when the contract will be signed.

Mr. Thorneycroft: They are being purchased. Contract negotiations both with the manufacturer and the operator, are in the final stages and I hope that agreement will be reached shortly.

Mr. Chetwynd: When does the right hon. Gentleman anticipate that these Heralds will be in service with B.E.A., and can he say on what routes they will be used?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put that Question down.


I should not like to specify the routes at this stage. However, the main point is that the aircraft are being purchased.

Vertical Take-off Aircraft

Mr. McMaster: asked the Minister of Aviation if, in view of the success of the Short S.C.1 research aircraft, he will support a further development programme in the field of new experimental and operational multi-jet aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing to be undertaken within the United Kingdom.

Mr. Thorneycroft: I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend on 20th February.

Mr. McMaster: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, I should like to ask him whether he will pay special attention to the timing of a further research and development programme so that we do not lose the lead we have established as a result of so much hard and original work in this revolutionary field, which may be exploited to considerable advantage by the United Kingdom?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I will certainly give full consideration to all the possibilities in the field of vertical take-off. It is not simply a question of money. It is also a question of markets. It is no good spending a great deal of money on something for which one has no market. I have myself discussed with the firm the possibilities of co-operation with other firms, possibly in Europe, and I am hoping that something may eventuate.

Blue Streak

Mr. Strachey: asked the Minister of Aviation whether he will issue a White Paper on the development of Blue Streak as the first stage of a launching vehicle for civil space research, containing estimates of the cost of a solely British programme of civil space research and, alternatively, of a British contribution to an international programme, together with a statement of the Government's policy concerning the economic return of a telecommunications system based upon such a programme.

Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir. I would prefer to await the outcome of the continuing negotiations with Europe on cooperation in the development and exploitation of satellite launchers.

Mr. Strachey: Would not the Minister agree that the time is rapidly approaching when he should take the House into his confidence on this whole matter? We are told now that the chances of a European programme with Blue Streak itself have diminished. We should like to know whether the Minister really thinks it wise to link the possibility of an international programme to Blue Streak as such, and whether it would not be better simply to invite co-operation on an international space programme without particular regard to the half-developed Blue Streak?

Mr. Thorneycroft: To do that would be to place a European Club at a very serious disadvantage, because the main advantage of a club would be to have all the "know-how" of the Blue Streak rocket, which is in an advanced stage of development, upon which to build. That is why I would suggest that at the moment these favourable terms which are offered should be considered and that we should get the answer to the Franco-British proposal before we announce anything else.

Mr. Strachey: Does it not appear that some of the nations—I have Germany in mind—are extremely suspicious—unjustifiably, I am sure—that the Government are trying to palm off Blue Streak on them? Is not this an obstacle to achieving any international programme, which surely is a prerequisite to successful development in this field?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman does not want to lend himself to any suggestion that we are trying to palm off anything on anybody. Indeed, after the German Chancellor's visit the other day it was announced in the Press communiqué that they were showing keen interest in this project. I think that we ought to await their reply.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: While I welcome European co-operation and congratulate my right hon. Friend upon his exertions to this end, might I ask whether he does not agree that, if necessary, we could proceed on a space programme within the Commonwealth making use of Blue Streak?

Mr. Thorneycroft: There are many ways in which we could proceed making


use of Blue Streak, but I think that on both sides of the House it is agreed that there are really substantial benefits in doing this as part of a European co-operative effort if we can do so. I would invite the support of the House on all sides; let me press forward with it at least up to the stage when we get the replies from the other European countries which we have now invited.

Mr. Warbey: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how much it has cost to keep this ill-starred project in being since the time when it was decided to cancel it as a military weapon?

Mr. Thorneycroft: The cost of maintaining the Blue Streak teams in being, which is, of course, essential if we are to go forward at all with this, is about £300.000 a month.

Supersonic Airliner

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Aviation what plans he now has for co-operating with the United States of America in designing and developing a supersonic airliner.

Mr. Thorneycroft: My Ministry is in touch with the American Administration about this subject, but I have nothing definite to report at present.

Mr. Rankin: In the meantime, would the right hon. Gentleman agree that co-operation in the design and development of a Mach 2 supersonic aircraft is absolutely essential because competition could result in the machine being put into service too early and that might be disastrous for a great many people?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I am sure that the hon. Member is absolutely right, that this is the type of project in which international co-operation is very necessary. We urged this point of view upon the previous American Administration, and we shall continue to urge it in the present circumstances.

Mr. Chetwynd: Can the Minister say whether future plans are being based upon British developments or American developments?

Mr. Thorneycroft: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have a design project with the British Aircraft Corporation which is proceeding, and our thinking has been on the basis of Mach 2. There

is some reason to believe that the American preference would be for the faster Mach 3. Whatever is decided upon, we should, I think, attempt to do it as an international co-operative effort.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Venereal Diseases

Mr. Abse: asked the Minister of Health what are the percentage variations in 1959 compared with 1958 of new patients suffering from gonorrhoea seen in clinics in England and Wales, respectively; what are the percentage variations in 1959 compared with 1958 of new patients suffering from venereal diseases classified as other conditions seen in clinics in England and Wales, respectively; and what steps are being taken to investigate the increase of venereal disease in Wales and to increase educative propaganda in Wales.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Enoch Powell): New patients suffering from gonorrhoea seen in clinics in 1959 increased by 12·1 per cent. in England and 23·5 per cent. in Wales compared with 1958. The corresponding figures for "other conditions" are 7·5 per cent. and 17·7 per cent. respectively. The number of new cases in Wales was however still much lower in proportion to population than in England. On the last part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Dr. D. Johnson) on 13th February.

Mr. Abse: Does not the right hon. Gentleman regard these figures, as far as they affect Wales, as unfortunate, bearing in mind that there appears to he good reason for believing that the main source of infection in Wales is the reservoir of untreated young women who are refusing, because of ignorance and fear, to attend clinics? Would he consider taking educative space in popular women's magazines—in anecdotal form if necessary—in order to bring the matter home?
Will he further consider the possibility of auxiliary and full-time nurses being attached to clinics, in order that they could, through the methods to which they are accustomed, bring home to these young women the importance of having early treatment?

Mr. Powell: This trend is disquieting, both inside and outside the Principality, but I am sure that the investigations which are taking place will throw light upon the underlying causes of the movement in Wales and England. Until we know more about that, it will be impossible properly to direct the effort which has to be made to check the trend.

Dysentery

Mr. Abse: asked the Minister of Health what are the percentage variations in notifications of dysentery in 1959 compared with 1950 in England and Wales, respectively; what preventative steps he is taking to control the annual winter out-breaks in Wales; and whether he will initiate discussions with the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs and with the Minister of Education with a view to improving the sanitation in houses and schools in the severely affected Welsh areas.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): An increase of 98 per cent. in England and 253 per cent. in Wales. So far as is known, the most effective prevention lies in better personal hygiene, which, with my Department's assistance, local authorities are constantly emphasising in their health education.

Mr. Abse: Does not the hon. Lady agree that personal hygiene would be much simpler if it were not for the fact, as shown in the last census, that we have 300,000 houses in Wales which have no bathrooms, and 125,000 which have no flush lavatories? Is it not rather simple for her, confronted with these annual waves of dysentery—which we should expect to find in an Asiatic country and not in Wales—to lecture on personal hygiene when what is needed instead is a drive to get these houses put right?
Is she aware that will not be done by raising, by 4 per cent., the amount a landlord can get if he puts civilised sanitation into his houses?

Miss Pitt: Sanitary provision both in homes and schools has very considerably improved in the last decade, and I would not think that the answer to this problem lies there. This is a matter of personal hygiene, because, in the main, this disease is passed on by personal contact.

The hon. Member referred to the position in the Principality, but he took a particularly bad year in choosing 1959. The figures for preceding years, which I have carefully studied show a far better position in comparison with England.

Mr. K. Robinson: Does not the hon. Lady agree that these are very disturbing figures? Can she say whether they represent a general upward trend for England and Wales or whether 1959 was a particularly bad year in both?

Miss Pitt: The year 1959 was a bad one for Wales, but such upward trend as there is comes about through improved diagnostic facilities, the fact that the disease is more easily recognised, and the fact that more significance is attached to diarrhoea amongst young children.

Welfare Foods

Sir B. Janner: asked the Minister of Health why it is proposed that the cost of milk supplied to mothers and babies should be raised from 4d. to 6d. in the near future; and if he will give further consideration to the position, in view of the hardship entailed to those who now benefit.

Miss Pitt: No such proposal has been made.

Sir B. Janner: Is the hon. Lady saying that there is no proposal of this nature in contemplation? If it should arise, will she see to it that it will not be accepted by her anyhow?

Miss Pitt: The hon. Gentleman's question related to a present proposal. There is no such proposal.

Mr. K. Robinson: Will the hon. Lady give an assurance that there is no intention in the foreseeable future of putting up the price of welfare milk to the consumer?

Miss Pitt: No, Sir. That is a hypothetical question.

General Practice (Working Party)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health how many times his Department's delegation to the working party on the sum reserved to improve general practice has met; how many times the full


working party has met; and when it is anticipated that it will complete its task.

Mr. Powell: The joint working party has met once. I cannot yet say when it will complete its task. My own staff consult together as necessary.

Mr. Pavitt: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that his own staff consultation is as frequent as necessary? Does he consider this working party to be the kind where one side speaks and the other side listens? Has the Ministry any contribution or suggestions to offer to get the same resources used in the best possible way?

Mr. Powell: In a recent debate, the hon. Member paid tribute to the work of my officials in a former joint working party. I have no reason to suppose that the part they are taking is less effective in this.

HOUSE OF COMMONSCATERING

Mrs. Castle: asked the hon. Member for Holland with Boston, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, what are the basic weekly hours worked by part-time evening staff in the Refreshment Department; what are the hourly rates of pay; and by how much these rates are increased when extra hours are worked.

Sir Herbert Butcher: I regret that I am unable to answer the hon. Lady's Question directly, since the term "basic weekly hours" is only applicable to full-time staff. The Catering Wages Act defines many grades of workers, and the wages paid by the Kitchen Committee are in excess of the hourly rates prescribed by that Act. The rates are increased by 50 per cent. for overtime. I should add that before the recent late sittings the question of overtime for part-time workers seldom arose, since the permanent staff was always given the first opportunity to volunteer for overtime.

Mrs. Castle: Is it not a fact that we recruit part-time evening staff on the basis of a weekly average of 18 hours, ranging from 6 p.m. to 10.30 p.m., and that the rate of pay for these women is 3s. 2½d. an hour? Is it not also the case that if they have to stay on after 10.30 p.m., even until 6 a.m. the next morning,

they get no increase whatsoever on that basic rate? I have had this information from members of the staff. If it is correct, does not the hon. Gentleman think that this is one of the evil by-products of the refusal to allow the catering and refreshment department staff in this House to decide whether or not they wish to be represented by trade unions?

Sir H. Butcher: The hon. Lady is one penny out in her figure. I think the rate is 3s. 3½d. I am informed that, on completion of the normal period of duty, overtime is paid at the rate of time and a half. About trade union representation, I would only say that the Kitchen Committee has followed the other Departments of the House in taking notice of the statement made by Mr. Speaker in this connection some time ago.

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the hon. Member for Holland with Boston, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, if he will alter the existing arrangements for the sale of all kinds of refreshment so as to ensure that no member of the Refreshment Department staff shall remain on duty after 11.30 p.m., irrespective of the hour to which the House may sit.

Sir H. Butcher: No, Sir. The hours during which service is provided are a matter for the authorities of the House in consultation with the Kitchen Committee. Unless the House itself desires any alteration, my Committee hopes to continue service as heretofore and is not proposing any alteration. The present arrangements appear to provide services necessary to Members of Parliament and to others employed in the building.

Mr. Johnson: Would not my hon. Friend agree that this might be a practical suggestion for showing our appreciation of the efficiency and loyalty of the staff? Is there any reason why those right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who find that food and drink are necessary for the transaction of the business of the House after 11.30 p.m. should not make their own arrangements beforehand and bring in their own food?

Sir H. Butcher: I think my hon. Friend overlooks the fact that in my reply I referred not only to Members of the House but to others in the building who are detained by virtue of the sittings of the House.

Mr. Dugdale: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many of us will welcome his reply, and think it is quite absurd that the House should be starved out during all-night sittings? Is he also aware that there is a great shortage of waitresses, that a large number of hon. Members who wanted refreshment at 3.30 a.m. on Friday morning had only one waitress to attend to them, and that although she carried out her duties in a magnificent manner, she had a very hard time?

Sir H. Butcher: I take note of what the right hon. Gentleman says and will bring it to the attention of the manager of the department. But, in my opinion, based on my own personal observations. during the sitting of Thursday night to Friday morning a sufficient number of staff were on duty to enable them to be provided with adequate rest periods

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSPITALS

Regional Boards (Cost Controllers)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Health how many regional hospital boards have a cost controller on their staffs; and whether he will require all regional boards to make such appointments, with a view to checking rising costs in the National Health Service.

Mr. Powell: Every regional hospital board has a chief financial officer responsible to it for control of cost.

Mr. Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend cognisant of the fact that some of these regional chief finance officers are not cost controllers and are not trained in cost accounting? Should it not be an essential, in order to keep down costs, that these men should have training in cost accounting, or have under them cost accountants learned in these matters?

Mr. Powell: I fully recognise the importance of cost accountancy in the hospital service, but I am not satisfied that it would be the right course to have a special cost officer. That might well result in diminishing the responsibility of the regional hospital board officers for controlling costs.

Mr. Snow: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his response to this attempt to get a further inflation of

administrative staff will be warmly welcomed? Is he also aware that the finance officers he has mentioned are, in the main, perfectly competent to deal with the directives they receive on the subject of costing control?

Mr. Powell: I do not think there is any limit to the attention which can be paid to the controlling and limitation of cost, and to the obtaining of value for money, in the hospital service.

S.S. "WEST BREEZE" (INTERCEPTION)

Mr. Healey: (by Private Notice)asked the Lord Privy Seal what protest Her Majesty's Government have made to the French Government concerning the interception of the British ship "West Breeze" in international waters off the Algerian coast.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. J. B. Godber): Representations were made to the French Government both in London and Paris on 24th February. They were asked for a full explanation of the circumstances surrounding this incident. We are now considering what further action we should take.

Mr. Healey: Can the Under-Secretary tell us whether he has had a reply from the French Government in the light of which he could give further consideration to this matter? Is it not the case that the French Government are not at war in Algeria, the only situation in which such interception would be legally permissible, and that the interception therefore represents an illegal interference with the freedom of the seas? Can he explain why Her Majesty's Government have taken such a different attitude toward the French Government on this issue compared with that taken towards the Icelandic Government, which is also an ally in N.A.T.O., on comparable issues? Is it simply that France is big and Iceland a small country?

Mr. Godber: The answer to that last question is, "No, Sir". Quite obviously, no considerations of that sort arose. This is a matter on which we obviously need further information before making


further representations. We shall, naturally, want to see the master's report. We do not accept that the action of the French Government in this case was in any way correct and we shall wish to take further action, but we wish to have our facts first.

Mr. Paget: Do we also take it that the action of the French Government in arresting this ship amounted to a recognition of the belligerent rights of the F.L.N., aid that from now onwards all nations are entitled to treat F.L.N. as a lawful belligerent?

Mr. Godber: That is an interesting question, but I do not feel disposed at the moment to say what interpretation should be placed on the actions of the French. This is not the first occasion on which the French have intercepted a vessel, although it is the first on which a British ship has been involved.

Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order. While I am sure that all hon. Members will have been glad that it was possible to have this Private Notice Question put and answered. would you care to explain, for the guidance of the House, Mr. Speaker, why it was so urgent a matter as to justify a Private Notice Question, as the ship was released long ago?

Mr. Speaker: I thought that it was and, the House giving the judgment to me in these matters, I cannot do better than that. I am not prepared to make declarations about general principles, because I think that that is too difficult to do.

DEFENCE

3.35 p.m.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Harold Watkinson): I beg to move,
That this House approves the Report on Defence, 1961, contained in Command Paper No. 1288.
The form of the White Paper this year confines itself primarily to policy, and the Services memoranda, to which I do not wish to refer in any detail today, have appeared rather better illustrated and set out in rather more detail. I hope that that balance will be for the convenience of the House. It is defence policy which is pre-eminent and the details, the single Service requirements, are better set out in the Service memoranda. The White Paper this year, therefore, tries to set out, clearly and factually, the broad frame of defence policy.
The White Paper is the first to be written against the background of the probability that both sides now have enough nuclear explosive to destroy one another. We have also rightly taken account of the growth of the industrial and military power of China.
There is one point I want to mention before coming to the White Paper policy in detail, and it is a matter about which the whole House will agree, however much we may differ on our method of getting there. In producing this White Paper, and its clearly and carefully thought-out policy statement, the Government have sought to face, I hope honestly, what I consider to be the dominant issue of our age.
In man's recorded history, peace has been a matter of only relatively short intervals between wars of steadily increasing destructiveness. Can we—and I hope that the House will bear this question in mind in this kind of defence marathon, as it goes on for two days—exploit the situation, that a major war would now destroy much of our civilisation, to deflect the course of history and break the sequence of alternating war and peace?
That is the basic fact that must underlie defence policy. Can we do it, or do we fail? If we fail, then time is running out for us all if we cannot break the sequence of peace as an interval between wars. Our primary task must be to stop our world destroying itself and the


mission of defence is rightly enunciated as a mission of peace, but peace through vigilance and purpose.
That is why the White Paper begins by setting disarmament as the Government's first priority, but all of us will agree that there may be a long road to travel before we can achieve disarmament. We must, therefore, give equal priority—and this is the second main point of the White Paper—to the task of preventing any kind of war from starting. That is the reason for maintaining a powerful deterrent policy in concert with our allies.
Thirdly, the White Paper sets out the Government's considered belief that our contribution to the deterrent strength of the West must continue to cover both the nuclear and conventional aspects of defence, not only because we and the West as a whole must clearly show our ability effectively to react against threats of any kind, but to ensure that the views of this country carry their proper weight in negotiations for nuclear test agreements, in disarmament negotiations and in N.A.T.O. and our other alliances.
The fourth main point of the White Paper is that we must carefully assess the shape and size of our contribution so that it is reasonably well balanced, both in relation to our national resources as a whole, and in its various components, nuclear and conventional and, within those broad divisions between men and weapons.
To sum up the four main points of this year's White Paper before dealing with them in detail: first, there is the need for new progress on disarmament; secondly, the necessity for deterrence over the whole spectrum of defence, including nuclear as well as conventional; thirdly, the maintenance of a carefully balanced contribution to meet our worldwide commitments and our obligations to our allies—I merge three and four for the convenience of the House.
We have made good progress with the five-year plan for defence, constructed with such skill and energy by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. [Laughter.] Yes, I know that it is often alleged, for purely political reasons, that the policies set out in earlier White Papers of this period have changed. The fact is that

the main frame of British defence policy has not changed. The maintenance of peace through the maximum contribution to the deterrent forces of the West has not changed. Technology and weapons have changed, but these must be subordinate to policy, for it is policy and not any particular weapon system that is decisive, particularly in this age of probable nuclear sufficiency.
The Government believe that the best, and perhaps the only, way to have peace is to stick to our present carefully balanced policies and the responsibilities that flow from them. Those who preach the unilateral renunciation of our defence obligations should ponder the hard facts of the dangerous world in which we live. Perhaps they might even consider how they would get on squatting in Red Square instead of outside my Ministry. All I would say is that such actions, if noted at all by a potential aggressor, would only encourage it in the belief that its aggression was likely to succeed. Unilateral renunciation of our defence obligations thus increases, not decreases, the danger of war. So, in my view, does any action or misrepresentation which might cast doubt on our will to carry out our obligations.
Fortunately the Government, like, I believe, the majority of our countrymen. wish to stand aside from this twisting of defence facts to suit political ends. It may be that the official Opposition would wish to do the same. Certainly, their recent policy statement is vague enough to give plenty of room to advance or retreat. I do not wish to deal with it in great detail now, and whether it is an official statement that we should consider, or what the Daily Herald calls the Cousins' case, or the Crossman case, but I would like to ask the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), who, I think, is following me, to tell the House in rather more detail how this policy would work. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about your policy?"] If it is considered that the Opposition have no need to adumbrate their policy to the country, it obviously implies that they see no possibility of ever carrying it out. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will go into this in more detail, and tell us, for example, how he proposes to carry out Article 8 of the official statement.
Anyway, be that as it may, the Government's task is clear. It is to stick to


their defence objectives and to state the facts concerning them. We believe that peace rests on a firm defence policy.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: But what is it?

Mr. Watkinson: This policy has so far been justified—and this is the answer to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman)—by the one result we seek from it, the maintenance of peace. That is all we seek from our defence policy, and we have no intention of deviating from our chosen course, which has so far won us that objective.
I now turn to examine in more detail the four main elements of our defence policy. First, disarmament. Disarmament and defence policy are obviously closely inter-related, and Her Majesty's Government hope that 1961 will see the conclusion of a nuclear test agreement. The other day I came upon something said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), and it shows how well he has always looked far into the future. In 1953, he said:
We and all nations stand, at this hour in human history, before the portals of supreme catastrophes or of measureless reward, but I have sometimes the odd thought that, with the advance of destructive weapons which enable everyone to kill everyone else, no one will kill anyone.
The conclusion of a nuclear test agreement would certainly be a very large step forward towards the ambition of having a world in which no one will kill anyone.
I want just to make this point so that there is no misunderstanding about the difficulties of this task, or of its cost; for the setting up, for example, of 180 control posts would be a very heavy burden on finance, manpower and on our technical capacity. None the less, this would be an immense step forward. It would be a great move towards broader measures of disarmament, and although it has all the difficulties of there being no known method of detecting hidden nuclear tests, plus the problem of clandestine manufacture and all the rest, 1961 should be the year in which we gain this first and vital disarmament objective.
For the rest, there remains for a Minister of Defence the problem of keeping the balance of force on which peace rests throughout the development of any

disarmament plan. To pretend that such problems do not exist is no help to disarmament. I believe that it is equally unrealistic to pretend that Great Britain could at this moment cast away her position as a nuclear Power which is fundamental to ensure that our views carry weight in all these dicussions. With Russia and the United States of America, such an action would merely weaken our influence, perhaps at a vital moment, as I have tried to show, in world affairs. It would certainly not stop other Powers from creating their own nuclear weapons.
The White Paper sets out as the Government's second objective our determination to maintain the deterrent strength of our alliances and our worldwide commitments until disarmament is achieved. Before turning to N.A.T.O., may I say that I hope hon. Members have glanced at the map on page 4 of the White Paper. It shows the worldwide spread of our commitments, and I think that most of us today would agree that the risk of an incident which might lead to limited or unlimited war is perhaps more likely outside the N.A.T.O. area than within it.
That is why it is important, in the Government's view, to create the unified commands in the Near East and Middle East which are recorded in the White Paper, and to carry on the further re-organisation of our forces which will give us greater mobility, greater hitting power, and a chance of trying to deal with a small incident before it turns into a dangerous nuclear explosion.
Now I will turn to N.A.T.O. It is sometimes said that Her Majesty's Government do not contribute enough to N.A.T.O., or that we are perhaps somewhat half-hearted about our support of this great alliance. Perhaps the House will consider the facts. Of the Royal Navy, 85 per cent. of the active and operational Reserve Fleet is committed to N.A.T.O. When, in due course, Fighter Command becomes part of Saceur's unified air defence, over 50 per cent. of the Royal Air Force front line aircraft will be committed to N.A.T.O. Forty per cent. of all Army formations available are assigned to N.A.T.O. Here, while the Army is being reorganised, we shall not always avoid having units which are under strength.
I must make it plain that we and the United States are disturbed at the world imbalance of payments, which is at present reflected in a substantial German surplus and United States and United Kingdom deficits, and at the military expenditure which, almost as a side effect, plays a part in bringing about this state of affairs. Nevertheless, it is the Government's wish to continue to maintain B.A.O.R. as close to full strength as we can in the circumstances, and we shall keep N.A.T.O. fully informed of our position here.
I now turn to the broader issue of N.A.T.O. policy and purposes. I hope that I have made it plain that the Government intend to give full support to the alliance, but I hope that it is equally plain to those who take the trouble to go to S.H.A.P.E. and Fontainebleau—as I know many hon. Members on both sides of the House have—and study the problems, that its strategy, especially nuclear strategy, needs a fresh appraisal to see if it is still right in completely changed circumstances.
I think that hon. Members know what is happening. Apart from the normal reviews—and N.A.T.O. is fairly review-ridden, anyway—a special review is now going on covering the whole of N.A.T.O. nuclear strategy. I wish to comment on only one or two points which I think important. Our representative there has already put forward British ideas for further progress. First, the terms "tactical" and "strategic", as applied to nuclear weapons, can be very misleading. It is the target that determines whether a nuclear weapon has been used tactically or strategically. The weapons themselves are often neither tactical nor strategic; it is only the rôle in which they are used which makes them one or the other, and we must try to keep that point in mind.
Secondly, N.A.T.O.'s main aim is to prevent war by maintaining an effective deterrent against aggression. To this end, N.A.T.O. strategy is based on the strategic nuclear forces of the West—S.A.C. and Bomber Command—and the shield forces in Europe and the naval forces in the Atlantic. If these forces fail in their deterrent rôle they will have to be used to fight the resulting war, but in our view their main task is to stop a war starting in Europe. That is the

fundamental principle that we must never forget. There are many elements in this problem of taking a new look. One is a need to identify those weapons which are necessary for the rôle of the forces under S.A.C.E.U.R.'s command; another is the need to solve the very difficult problem of control—political as well as military—and a third is the need for weapons clearly to be subordinate to overall strategy.
Perhaps I could sum it up by repeating that we do not challenge N.A.T.O. purposes or principles. The fundamental problem could be summed up essentially as one of control and of the right balance between the nuclear and the conventional in N.A.T.O. forces. Therefore, our idea of N.A.T.O. is an alliance with strong conventional forces, backed by atomic fire power in the tactical rôle We do not see any advantage in setting up N.A.T.O. as a strategic nuclear Power; nor, I understand, does General Norstad.
I now turn to the second part of the N.A.T.O. problem, which can be summed up under the word "interdependence"—a much overused word. None the less. it is fundamental to the success not only of N.A.T.O. but of the world alliance of free people to make this concept of interdependence work. We feel it right that this should be considered in much wider terms than merely bilateral or multilateral arms deals. They are very important. but they are not the whole picture. There is the interdependence—although perhaps better words would be "standardisation" and "rationalisation"—of the whole allied defence effort. There is the problem of how to use our scientific, industrial and economic resources better together. There is the problem of trying to identify projects. At least, Great Britain took the lead there and presented N.A.T.O. with a list of a limited number of specific projects.
The Government regard that list as being a test of whether N.A.T.O. can make interdependence work. So far, I am glad to say that, as I am advised, the work on these projects is going well, but we must see some ascertainable success if we are to claim that interdependence is providing an end product. In the meantime, we have built up much better co-ordination between our military experts, scientists and technicians, and the chance of work being wasted is much less than it was.
Interdependence also means that each N.A.T.O. ally must try to meet to the greatest extent the requirements of other N.A.T.O. nations British forces make use of many facilities on the Continent of Europe, and it therefore seems only common sense that we should be willing to help the Germans or any other of our allies if we can do so As the House knows, there has recently been a meeting of exports in Paris, under the auspices of N.A.T.O., to deal with the specific question of any help we can give to the German forces. No final decisions have yet been taken, but I thought that I should bring the House up to date with the progress of discussions at the beginning of the debate.
First, we have told the German authorities that we shall be ready to assist them in placing contracts for the maintenance of ships and aircraft in this country. That does not seem to be bad business, and our shipyards could do it well. Secondly, we have said that we could provide storage facilities for ammunition, petrol, oil, lubricants and general stores in some of the surplus storage capacity in our Service depots. Those depots will continue to be run by the Army or the Navy, and by British staff. Thirdly, we have agreed to examine the 'possibility of arranging German naval training in the manoeuvring areas normally used by the Home Fleet. That is a perfectly proper N.A.T.O. purpose.
We have also asked the German authorities to send a small party over to see whether the existing tank-firing facilities which we can provide for a limited number of German troops at Castlemartin would meet their demands. That party has yet to arrive, and no decision will be taken until an inspection has been made and we have had further talks. I hope that that brings the House up to date on that aspect of interdependence.
I now turn to the question of Anglo-American co-operation, which also comes under the heading and the broad scope of interdependence. Here, we share between us the responsibility for the Western deterrent. The United States Strategic Air Command and Bomber Command are closely linked, and I hope that they will remain so. We have given the United States facilities in Holy Loch for the maintenance of a Polaris submarine, and I am glad to welcome, on

behalf of Her Majesty's Government, the United States mothership "Proteus" which will arrive there on 3rd March.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: There will be a welcome there, too.

Mr. Watkinson: Possibly a different sort from the one the hon. Member is thinking of. It seems to me to be only common sense that when, because of our geographical position, we can help to increase the effectiveness of this great addition to the Western deterrent to war, we should do so. In my view, it is a sincere attempt to give a further insurance for peace in the world.

Mr. John Rankin: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that Norway might have fulfilled, he rôle which is now being fulfilled by Holy Loch? Can he tell us why Norway rejected Polaris?

Mr. Watkinson: I would not know. No doubt Norway, Germany and other N.A.T.O. allies could have taken over this responsibility, but I prefer that the British Government should share in this task.
At many other points we are in the closest operational relationship with the United States. The United States development of Skybolt saves us research and development resources which we can divert to other purposes. I want to say again here what I tried to say about N.A.T.O. as a whole: if interdependence means anything to the Western world it must be a two-way trade, and it must work properly. That is why I very much hope to have an opportunity of meeting my new American opposite number, Mr. Macnamara, in Washington very soon and—

Mr. Rankin: Macnamara's Band?

Mr. Watkinson: —to discuss with him ways and means of furthering our common aims and complementing our joint efforts. It is based on the belief, as I have said, that this must be a two-way trade and that it must be seen to work reasonably efficiently. So much for interdependence.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Accepting that interdependence is the cornerstone of defence policy, if it is such a good thing why should it not be equally applicable to nuclear weapons,
particularly nuclear


bombs? Why is it all right for conventional weapons and not nuclear weapons?

Mr. Watkinson: I am coming to the question of nuclear weapons in a moment, when I shall answer the point raised by the hon. Member.
I turn now to the Government's third objective, namely, the need to contribute to the whole range of defence. In this, to answer the hon. Member's question, we approach the area of fevered and highly inaccurate controversy which surrounds the nuclear weapon. I will expound the facts which are clearly set out in the White Paper for those willing to read them. This firmly restates the Government's determination that Great Britain can, and should, continue to make her contribution to the nuclear deterrent strength of the West.
I believe that this is the clearest definition one can have of our continuing purpose. It seems to me of little point to split hairs about the terminology of our nuclear deterrent. An aggressor knows that we have this weapon and that in certain circumstances —which I pray will never arise—we should use it. The Government have made it plain that we have, and will continue to have, this capacity over the next ten years at least.
There is another argument—which I shall deal with in detail, because the House should have the facts in front of it as far as I can properly give them—apart from the one of outright rejection. It might be called the bayonets versus bombs argument. Are we spending too much on the strategic nuclear weapons? Is the balance between nuclear and conventional weapons right? The Government think that they have done this, and I will explain why. The cost of our nuclear strategic deterrent is about 10 per cent. of the defence budget. The cost of our air defences, world-wide, is about 10 per cent. of the total defence budget. Of this second 10 per cent., about one-third is attributable to the requirements of the deterrent.
If we decided to abandon the air defence of the bomber bases altogether, at best the saving would be a very small one. The type of force that would be required in this country would still need to carry

out the rôle of reconnaissance and preventing radar jamming, and so on. We should still need the control and reporting system which, I hope, will gradually incorporate civil aircraft, and we should still need fighter aircraft and defensive guided missiles for many tasks around the world.
The point I wish to emphasise is that it is very easy to overestimate the resources that would be saved if the United Kingdom were either to opt out, or reduce, the contribution to the nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Warbey: rose—

Mr. Watkinson: No, I cannot give way. We have a two-day debate.
It is even easier to assume that if this change of policy were accepted we should be able to increase substantially the size, or the quality, of our conventional forces. If we gave up the whole of the bomber force completely there might be some real saving. Merely giving up the weapon will not result in any real saving. One would have to give up the whole of the delivery system, otherwise there is no real saving by cutting back in this field.
On the whole, I think that the balance in our defence programme is about right As for those who try to disguise an occasional doctrinal difficulty by claiming that our contribution is insignificant, I would say that they must face the fact that as it stands ready at this moment Bomber Command is capable, by itself, of crippling the industrial power of any aggressor nation. That is the truth of the present situation.

Mr. Harold Davies: That is absolute rubbish.

Mr. Watkinson: I will arrange for the hon. Member to visit Bomber Command and to see for himself, if he wishes to do so. The force is extremely flexible and geography is on its side. Its deterrent power can operate in circumstances far away from Europe.

Mr. Davies: I sincerely believe in the cause of truth. Is the right hon. Gentleman telling the people of Britain that subsonic planes, in this technicological age, would be able to get through and deliver as he implies? If he is saying that, he knows it to be wrong, and so do the hon. Members of this House

Mr. Watkinson: The simple answer to the hon. Gentleman is "Yes", and I know it to be right. Even in an era of nuclear sufficiency there are powerful arguments for the retention of a British deterrent. I know that there are divided views on this, but if we are approaching, as I believe we are, some kind of nuclear balance, then keeping the means of delivery diverse, dispersed and up to date is even more necessary.
We have a few ideas for doing this. The free falling nuclear bomb, with which the V-bombers are armed, can at this moment be delivered to its target if the need arises. As air defences increase it will be replaced by the stand-off Blue Steel. To enable the V-bombers to attack their targets with even greater stand-off capacity, we are arranging to introduce Skybolt in the later 1960s. It is under development in the United States and is making very good progress. It is by no means the only possibility for the later 1960s. There are other means of delivery which we could adopt for deterrent purposes.
I am trying to tell the House the whole story as clearly as I can. There is the Buccaneer, which is shortly to come into service with the Royal Navy, which will be able to penetrate enemy territory by flying at very low levels. There is the TSR2, which will come into service with the Royal Air Force in the mid-1960s, an even more advanced weapon with the ability to fly at very low levels and to follow the contours of the ground automatically.
There are also other possibilities under study which we may adopt. I quite accept that the position is inconvenient for the Opposition at this stage, but I think that they might have served their own interests, and perhaps the national interests, better if they had stuck to the line which we remember they took in the defence debate twelve months ago. I will leave it at that.
The Government do not judge these issues by internal political considerations. We apply the yardstick of their effect on possible aggressors. By this test I believe that we have just about the right balance between the nuclear and the conventional.
I turn now to the fourth main aim of defence policy: how to get the best value for defence expenditure and the best

balance within it. What dividend do we seek? All we seek is a peaceful world in which the basic protection of our way of life can he preserved. So far, we have secured our end. No doubt I shall sit through this marathon debate and hear again the usual charge of money wasted on defence. Peace is not to be bought on the cheap. We have had peace and if one wants it one has to pay for it. It is as simple as that.
Some of the following figures may, perhaps, help to dispel this illusion. In the ten years from January, 1951, to December, 1960, 410,000 tons of naval shipping were laid down. In the same ten years, the lift potential of the global transport force of the Royal Air Force has been increased from 50 million passenger miles a month to 150 million passenger miles a month, and is still building up.
In 1951, as everybody knows, we had a mixed force of Lincolns, Washingtons and Mosquito bombers carrying conventional bombs; but now one Vulcan bomber carries a far greater load of destructiveness than the whole bomber force did ten years ago.
The equipment of the Army is changing out of all recognition. It is being re-equipped with the F.N. rifle, the Stirling sub-machine gun, the Mobat antitank gun, the 105 mm. pack howitzer, the 8-inch howitzer, and Thunderbird. The new Chieftain tank is undergoing trials. There are many other clear gains to our defensive strength which are the dividend of the money spent. I ask the House not to have any doubts about this. In my view, the right dividend is the peaceful state of the world we have so, far managed to achieve and for that the price we pay is a very small insurance policy.
I turn to the difficult problem of defence planning. I do not try to disguise the difficulty of getting the best balance in a rapidly changing world. It is an immense subject and I shall take only four examples. First, there is mobility. I accept that the case for relatively small Regular forces rests on greater mobility and greater hitting power. I say again, because I sincerely believe it, that in an age of nuclear balance it is perhaps the small "brush fire" which may hold the greatest risks for us all. One does not cope with that situation with small garrisons, but with large mobile forces.
Commando carrier and seaborne support especially will greatly increase our ability to bring this kind of composite force to bear quickly. It also enables us to poise it perhaps below the horizon, where it does not produce any particular political side effects.
I think that we are working towards the right balance in new Regular forces to meet this need for knocking the small incident quickly on the head before it can spread to something more dangerous. What is the present position of this front line "fire brigade" force?

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will the—

Mr. Watkinson: No I wish to go on.
At present, we have four commandos in the United Kingdom, Malta, Aden, and aboard H.M.S. "Bulwark", and we are planning to raise a fifth. Army deployment plans provide for a strategic reserve in this country and theatre reserves in East Africa and the Far East. Perhaps I should make plain that any large emergency would certainly allow us to draw on the seven brigade groups in Germany, as we have a right to do.
There is much talk about the necessity for quick reaction time in nuclear defence, but the rapidity of reaction time for conventional forces is as important. A considerable proportion of the strategic reserve in this country and in Kenya remains always at 48 hours' notice to move by air or land. In addition to commando carriers and commandos, this means that we could bring a substantial force quickly to any trouble spot. This is what we hope to maintain and improve as time goes on.
I turn to Regular recruiting. It is not my job to go into the details. I am sure the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) will go into that in due course. What I want to say to him and to the House as a whole—I may be proved wrong, but I do not think so—is that I believe we shall succeed in recruiting our Regular forces provided the nation gives this task reasonable support. I hope, therefore, that right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Members opposite will not be backward in giving their support to this cause. I do not think that they wish to do anything else, but let us have it clearly on the record. Any mis-statement about defence, any cleverly twisted argument is a disincen

-tive to a young man who wants to go into the forces. Let right hon. Gentlemen opposite take it to heart, despite all their saddle-soreness from galloping their hobby-horses all over the country.
I come back to recruitment. It is fair to say that not very long ago, in 1957—we must try to get this into proportion—it was forecast that the shortage of Regular recruits in the Army—and, of course, it is the Army which is the problem—might be about 50,000, or perhaps. at best, 25,000. Already, we can see that we shall do better than that. Although I try to be perfectly frank with the House and say that there has always been a risk in giving up conscription, I believe that it is absolutely the right thing to do. I believe that as the country sees the Regular Army formations with progressive training, better units, better accommodation, better weapons, and better equipment, we shall get the recruits we need, and not only the men we need but the right men of high quality.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: They will not stay in the Army.

Mr. Watkinson: Although it would be very unwise to make judgments on one set of figures or another, I am certain that the January recruiting figures will bear out that argument. We shall go on with our estimates, and this year, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War will tell the House, we have a very elaborate stepped-up campaign to draw the attention of virile, energetic young men to the good, well-paid life which the Army provides.

Mr. G. W. Reynolds: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the recent article by the Bow Group is part of that campaign?

Mr. Watkinson: Recent articles by the Bow Group show what a broad-minded party the Conservative Party is. Right hon. Members opposite are always saying that we are a great monolithic party which never thinks out its policy.
To come back to recruiting, which perhaps is more important than what we have been talking about, I think that we could get the total of just over 400,000 men. At a cost of 52 per cent. of the defence budget, I want to make it plain that this is as large a force as we can


properly afford if we are to have a reasonable defence budget. The figure of just over 400,000 would be divided into 180,000 for the Army—

Mr. George Wigg: The right hon. Gentleman is getting his figures wrong. If he is getting only 400,000 he has 135,000 for the Air Force and 88,000 for the Navy. That is a long way short.

Mr. Watkinson: My addition is: 180,000 for the Army, 135,000 for the Royal Air Force and 88,000 for the Royal Navy.

Mr. Paul Williams: . My right hon. Friend mentioned 180,000 for the Army, but can he tell us where we are? Is it 165,000, or 180,000? It is very important.

Mr. Watkinson: Of course it is important, but, as I have been saying, I have reasonable confidence that we shall reach the 165,000 target early in 1963, which is the due date. I then have confidence, because by then we shall have the strong upward tendency in recruiting, that we shall be able reasonably quickly to get a little over 180,000, which will be the ceiling which probably will have to be imposed for financial reasons.

Mr. Wigg: In the 1957 White Paper the Government gave a categorical assurance, which was repeated by the Home Secretary, that unless they got the 165,000 by 31st December, 1962, in honour the Government were pledged to reintroduce some form of conscription. The Minister has now admitted for the first time—or, actually, for the second time, because the previous Secretary of State for War said the same—that they are not going to get 165.000 by 31st December. 1962.

Mr. Watkinson: I know that the hon. Member wants recruiting to succeed, but I think that he is saying exactly the sort of thing that makes recruiting a great deal more difficult.
I come now to the question of defence, research and development. I am very surprised that more notice has not been taken of the arguments put forward in the White Paper concerning this immensely difficult problem. I hope that we have made some important strides forward in our objective of trying to match—we can only do that in our own

chosen spheres—the vastly greater potential of the United States and Russia. This is really our problem. We are trying to compete with two industrial nations who can afford to spend money and do research on a scale that we cannot hope to imitate. Yet, by trying to select our particular spheres, I hope that we can—we must certainly try—keep level with them, or even make an occasional break-through, in friendly rivalry with the United States and, in a deterrent sense, in respect of Russia.
To give the House an example, we might hope to do that in the Navy in relation to anti-submarine warfare, and in the operation and control of aircraft carriers. In these matters we have already contributed much. We are pressing forward to the maximum of our ability in the tasks relating to the science of submarine detection and location, the importance of which I need not stress to hon. Members who have studied the numbers of Russian and Chinese submarines.
In the Army, we are producing and continuing to develop the best family of tank guns and tanks in the world. I hope that the Germans will now take the British 105 mm. tank gun as the Americans and other allies have done. In the R.A.F., we are clearly right to make our contribution by means of aircraft. In that way we have already contributed much. By "aircraft" I mean, also, aero-engines.
In the TSR2, for example, we have a project which at present is ahead of anything else in the world. We believe that our bombers can become airborne more quickly than any others—and so on through the whole range of our effort. I am trying to say that if we can manage to select the right sphere in which to make a contribution of our own, we may still hope to stay level with those two industrial giants. The development of the vertical take-off and short take-off aircraft is another sphere where I think we have very much to contribute.
Having selected our fields of endeavour, we have to work out whether we are now successfully operating a better method of selecting our projects and monitoring them as they go forward into production. We must make greater use of the initial study contract to study the feasibility of any particular kind of


weapon system or project and then to study its development and what it will cost over the time-scale and so on. We are making a great many careful developmcnts to enable us to pick the successful projects at the earliest possible stage in their production, and in the very difficult stage when they change from an operational requirement to something which has to go into industry or into a defence factory. A great deal of work is going on in connection with this.
My fourth point in this balance within the programme is that of cost. No one would be better pleased than I were it possible to turn this expenditure to more peaceful purposes, but this cannot be until we can get some proper moves forward in disarmament and control. In the meantime, I expect that this year defence expenditure will continue the trend shown in the graphs which appear on page 9 of the White Paper; that is to say, a further small decline—I think very small—in the proportion of the gross national product devoted to defence.
One point I wish to make in answer to those who say that we spend too much on defence, and that the money might be better spent on other purposes, is that despite the constant crises over the last seven years there has actually been a decline of nearly 20 per cent. in defence spending I think that a very good record, bearing in mind the immense task we have to perform around the world. I do not mean that by comparison with our allies we are not still carrying our full share. Only the United States and France contribute a larger proportion of their gross national product to defence than we do.
Another interesting point about finance is that, strictly and technically. the Ministry of Defence is responsible for policy and the Service Ministries are confined to our annual budgetary exercise, a year-by-year process. It has always seemed to me that this is a quite illogical way in which to plan a large expenditure of money on projects for which the time-scale is normally between five years and seven years. It presents industry, the defence factories and the research stations with an impossible task.

I am, therefore, glad to say, as is mentioned in paragraph 31 of the White Paper, that we are trying—it is still to some extent an experiment—to solve the problem by having a five-year forward look at defence spending; so that industry and all those concerned can obtain a much clearer idea, over a proper time-scale of what kind of defence spending they may have to contemplate, and what their share of it may be.
I have tried to be factual and to tell the House where we stand as clearly and plainly as I can. I am happy to leave the "fun and games" until later in our proceedings. Naturally, we examine and re-examine the broad pattern of our defence spending and our defence policy. No one could stand at this Box and, with the help of the Government's advisers, bear this burden, if he did not make every possible attempt to see that we were getting the best value in our defence programme and policy. Having carried through this continuing process of examination and re-examination, we believe that our defence programme represents about the best balance within our contribution and that our contribution is as much as we can fairly be expected to make to our various alliances and in the performance of the job we have to do in the world. The difference between us is, perhaps, expressed in some words from Henry V:
There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observedly distil it out.
My right hon. and hon. Friends and I believe that we can only get peace by holding a continuous responsibility; by not rejecting the nuclear weapon so long as it serves its purpose—as it is certainly doing today—and by firmly going forward with a clear and definite defence policy which plays its maximum part in keeping the peace and in our alliances, and represents within our own defence policy the best and the most clearly adjusted balance which we can provide. That is the position as it stands. It represents no broad change in our defence policy and it is the best insurance policy for peace that the country could ever have.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Denis Henley: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to


the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
has no confidence that the policy as set out in the White Paper, Command Paper No. 1288, will provide effectively for the defence of Britain 
The White Paper which the Minister of Defence has just presented to the House is in many ways an extraordinary document. In presentation and tone it resembles, particularly in its strip cartoons, a "Robin" comic rather than a serious document of study. One can welcome some of the irreproachable platitudes which appear on the first two or three pages of the document, but. unfortunately, when the document descends into matters of detail it becomes clear that Her Majesty's Government have not the slightest idea what these platitudes mean.
Indeed, in so far as there might have seemed to be anything attractive in the White Paper, the Minister of Defence robbed it of all meaning when he confessed that this year's Defence White Paper represents no substantial change from the White Paper presented to the House in. 1957 by his predecessor, who is now the Secretary of State for Common wealth Relations.
I am sure that the House will find itself in general agreement with some of the statements with which the White Paper begins. We can agree, above all, with the opening sentences:
There is only one answer to the threat to mankind posed by armaments. This is to reach a satisfactory agreement on general disarmament under effective international control.
I believe, as I hope that everyone on both sides of the House profoundly believes, this statement to be true.
There is a further statement on page 3 which, I think, will command at any rate overwhelming majority assent on both sides of the House. It is this:
Until general disarmament has been achieved, peace rests on the maintenance of adequate power by the West to discourage aggression by the Soviet bloc or by China.
There is a further platitude about which we will all agree. It is when the White Paper states that there are certain limitations on the contribution which Britain can make to the Western defence forces—first, the other demands which may be made on our national resources as a whole, and, secondly, the other

demands which may be made on our military resources in particular.
There is one glaring omission from the list of limiting conditions with which the White Paper begins, and that is the one to which I shall have to devote the bulk of my speech. We on this side of the House believe that, since disarmament is the only answer to the threat posed to mankind at present, it is absolutely essential that any steps we take in armaments in the short run should contribute to the long run end of disarmament and should not conflict with it.
We believe profoundly that defence policy must be subordinated to foreign policy, that generals must be subordinated to Foreign Secretaries. We believe that it is a tragedy that, not only in our own country but also in other countries, for many years the position has been the other way round. For years defence commitments which may have been made five, six or seven years ago have been tying the hands of diplomats and steps have been taken in the sincere hope of maintaining strength for negotiation which in fact have made negotiation impossible or futile.
It is from this point of view that I wish, first, to criticise the Government's defence programme. I believe that in 1961 there is a better chance than there has been at any time since the end of the Second World War to make real progress on disarmament and on agreement with the Soviet Union and her allies on arms control. I believe that there is a real danger that some of the policies now followed by Her Majesty's Government and by the West as a whole may make such agreements more difficult.
The biggest single threat posed to any agreement between the West and the Soviet Union at present in the field of disarmament is the very real and immediate possibility that atomic weapons will spread into the possession of a large number of countries which do not now possess them. When we on this side of the House raised this problem many years ago, a good deal of scepticism was expressed by Ministers and hon. Members opposite. However, we have now seen the French Government carry out test explosions. There has been recent evidence that perhaps the Israeli Government are seeking to produce atomic explosives. We know that at least ten or twenty other


countries have, at any rate, the physical capacity to begin producing their own atomic weapons if they should judge it politically and economically advisable to do so.
I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to deny that he meant what he said in the course of his speech that he sometimes had the odd thought that peace would be safer if everybody had the opportunity of blowing up everybody else.

Mr. Watkinson: That is not what I said. That is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) said. I will supply the hon. Member with the quotation if he wants it.

Mr. Healey: The Minister of Defence said that he sometimes had this odd this. [HON. MEMBERS: "No"] May I take it that on this issue the Minister of Defence disagrees absolutely with the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W Churchill)?

Mr. Watkinson: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but I want to keep the record straight. The record will be quite clear that I gave a quotation from a speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford in 1953.

Mr. Healey: The right hon. Gentleman has still not said whether he agrees with the statement. Why did he quote it if he did not agree with it?

Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree or disagree with it?

Mr. Healey: The plain fact is that all of us on this side and a large number of right hon. and hon. Members opposite take absolutely the contrary view, namely, that if the possession of atomic weapons spreads to more countries than have them at present—if the existing balance of terror, as the right hon. Member for Woodford once called it, turns into a general thermo-nuclear anarchy—any possibility of reaching agreement on arms control in the world as a whole or with the Soviet Union will be lost beyond all possible recovery.
I hope that the Minister of Defence, in spite of his embarrassment when I asked him that question, shares that view. If he does, I hope that he will also agree with my further point that,

if the possession of atomic weapons spreads inside the Western Alliance, it is certain to spread outside it—not only inside the Soviet Alliance, but also to a large number of countries in Africa and Asia, which may have suspicion or fears of the possible action of some countries which are now inside the Western Alliance.
I believe that action to stop the spread of nuclear weapons is not only vital, but extremely urgent. Unless action can be taken on this issue in the immediate future, there is the real possibility of atomic weapons spreading into the possession of so many countries that all the calculations on which both sides of the House now base their defence policies will become irrelevant.
We shall face a situation in which we no longer have to calculate our policies in the light of one particular thermo-nuclear threat. We shall have to calculate our policies in the light of possible atomic threats coming from a dozen or a score of separate Powers. It is, therefore, absolutely essential that in the immediate future our own defence policy is calculated to contribute towards stopping and not encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Has the hon. Gentleman given any thought at all to the technology and testing requirements of any nation that possesses or uses the hydrogen bomb? How is it possible for possession just to spread in the way he is envisaging?

Mr. Healey: I have given a great deal of thought to this question. So have the American Government. So, I think, have Her Majesty's Government. That is one reason why they are trying to develop foreign policies calculated to stop the spread.
The point which I want to establish in this House this afternoon is that if one wants to stop the spread of atomic weapons one must also judge one's defence policies in the light of the impact that they are likely to make on the intention of other Governments. It is my belief that the Government's determination to continue developing new delivery systems for Britain's atomic weapons for at least ten years ahead is likely to be a major obstacle to any


agreement on freezing the present situation.
I do not deny, as some hon. Members on both sides have done, that Britain possesses a formidable thermo-nuclear striking force. It is, indeed, a formidable one. I believe, however, and we on this side believe, that to keep our thermo-nuclear force effective over the next ten years will require a colossal effort by this country—and will be impossible without physical assistance from the United States of America, which would set a dangerous precedent for the action of other of America's allies.
The first question we must ask is why the Government are so set on this course. At the outset, we come across a serious contradiction between the views of the Secretary of State for Air and his supposed senior, the Minister of Defence, who has just spoken to us. Ever since he took office, the Minister of Defence has insisted that the aim of this operation from the British point of view is to make an independent contribution to the Western deterrent. In his Press conference on the Air Estimates last week, the Secretary of State for Air said that the first aim of our efforts in this direction was to establish an effective British deterrent. He referred quite separately to the question of making a contribution to the joint Western deterrent.
The difference is a very important one and I should like to spend a moment or two describing it. If the Secretary of State for Air and the Government want an effective independent and purely British deterrent, will they please tell us at some stage in the debate precisely what they want it for? Can any of them conceive of any situation in which we would need a completely independent deterrent because a military threat to which our deterrent was appropriate was being presented exclusively to these islands?
For myself, I find it almost impossible to conceive of such a situation. If, however, the Government can conceive of such a situation, I would ask them a second question. Assuming that such a threat is presented, do they really believe that over the next ten years—I speak not necessarily of the present, but looking ten years ahead—a situation could arise in which we could effectively use an

independent thermo-nuclear force? Presumably, we would not use it against a country that did not have atomic weapons, because to do so would involve us in moral obloquy throughout the world from which we should never recover. Do we plan to use it against the Soviet Union or the United States? Against whom precisely do the Government plan to use this purely independent deterrent?
I suggest that if the Government are planning purely independent action against a major thermo-nuclear Power, it has no chance of success, because either of the other nuclear Powers which wishes to exert the whole weight of its nuclear striking force exclusively against these islands could be almost certain of knocking out our forces before they could be used, particularly because, with our existing V-bomber force, which is to remain an essential component of our delivery system for at least a decade, we are dependent on a warning system which we do not independently control and which is very largely manned and controlled by our allies.
Indeed, it seems to me that if one takes the evidence presented in the Memorandum accompanying the Navy Estimates and accepts that the Soviet Union is producing submarines with a nuclear missile capacity, it would be dangerous to rely on having any warning whatever, because submarines could fire missiles at this country from the surrounding waters without giving our aircraft even 30 seconds in which to get off the fields on which they are dispersed. The plain fact is that the contention of the Secretary of State for Air at his Press conference was one of his last spasmodic reactions at the end of the old Suez neurosis. The Government as a whole have completely given up the idea of a purely independent deterrent. It is simply a few remnants of the Suez group scattered around the benches opposite who still cherish the illusion.
If, as I think the Minister of Defence has done, we reject the conception of a purely independent British deterrent and we try to justify the Government's policy on the basis that it is a necessary contribution to the Western deterrent—I fully concede that this is the argument which the Minister of Defence used last


year and has used this year; it is the only argument which he has ever presented to the House or to the country to justify this policy—I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give the House evidence that any of our allies wants us to make this contribution. I suggest that there is no such evidence, although there is a great deal of evidence to the contrary. There is also plenty of evidence that our alliance, if we are talking as part of an alliance, does not need it.
Let us look, first, at the American thermo-nuclear striking force as it exists and, secondly, as it will exist two or three years from now. Even at present, the United States of America, with which we are in alliance and on which we and the whole of the West depend for the deterrence of thermonuclear attack, has 2,000 long-range strategic bombers, two wings of tactical bombers with nuclear capacity, 14 aircraft carriers whose aircraft carry atomic weapons, 14 wings of tactical fighters, Atlas missiles, Snark missiles, Regulus missiles and Matador and Mace missiles.
That was the situation last year. By 1963, America will also have 13 squadrons of inter-continental Atlas missiles. It has already produced two Polaris submarines. It is planning to produce three more Polaris submarines every year for the next ten years and each of those submarines will carry 16 megaton missiles. By 1963, the United States is planning to produce three wings of B58 bombers. The Minuteman missile is likely to come into operational use a year or two before it was originally planned and the American Air Force will be equipped with the Hound Dog air-to-surface missile.
The question which I should like to put to Her Majesty's Government, which they have never answered, is that if we assume that we are an alliance and that if ever we are presented with a military threat by the Soviet Union we shall have the support of our allies, what is the sense—

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Ah.

Mr. Healey: The noble Lord may well say "Ah", but the Minister of Defence is precluded from saying so by the whole nature of the Government's foreign policy. The question which I put to the

Government, and on which I should like an answer during this debate, is as follows. Given the colossal striking power of the United States in thermonuclear deterrents, what is the sense in spending £200 million a year in this country to keep 100 or more V-bombers in useful life for a few more years than otherwise they would be likely to be effective?
The precise cost of our thermo-nuclear programme is difficult to discover. I maintain, however, that insistence on giving priority to this effort has distorted the whole of our defence programme. We can be sure in advance that a very large proportion of our expenditure will be wasted, because, as the Minister of Defence has often admitted, it is not possible for a small country like Britain to try out six or seven alternative projects simultaneously. It must try to guess the right one, as the right hon. Gentleman once said, in the stable. We have had only one case so far. It was Blue Streak, a total failure which cost the country £100 million. That is well over three times as much as the groundnuts mistake cost the Labour Government ten years before.
The total loss on the Blue Streak project has reduced the Minister of Aviation, whom I am glad to see here, to the ignominious rôle of a latter day George Dawson carrying a load of surplus ex-service scrap round Europe in an effort to save money from the ruins. I suggest that on this issue, as on so many of the Government's defence programmes and policies, the Government are always making the fatal mistake of judging weapons which we may have in five or six years time against Soviet defences Which we know they have now.
The reason the Blue Streak effort was a complete failure is that we failed to take account of the fact that at the same time as we were producing missiles the Soviet Government were improving their missiles and their defences. The chance of this being so in the ease of a small Power trying to compete with great Powers like the Soviet Union is so great as to make any expenditure in this field unjustifiable.
I am glad to say that I am able to welcome this criticism also from a group of Conservative thinkers—in the old days that used to be an oxymoron—in a recent pamphlet which the Bow Group has published. I was very glad to see


that, perhaps for this reason, the conference of Young Conservatives this weekend refused to endorse the Government's defence policy when the resolution was put to it.

Mr. Watkinson: I hoped the hon. Gentleman would say that, because it enables me to put on record the fact that they passed a strong resolution requiring the Government to retain their nuclear weapons with only three dissentients.

Mr. Healey: I am glad that the Minister of Defence feels fortified by the Young Conservatives' support on this single issue, even if they rejected the rest of his policy.
I am very glad to see—it is a good thing not only for the Conservative Party but for the country—that members of the Conservative Party should have wakened up from this age-long sleep in which they previously existed, in which the Government could completely revolutionise their defence policy from year to year without any of the hon. Members opposite even noticing, in which they got the same monolithic support, although one year the policy was completely different from the policy a year later.
I believe that as things now are, this country cannot stay in the atomic arms race with the great Powers unless it gets help from the United States and, as we know, the Minister of Defence has sought that help on more than one occasion. I feel more satisfied than ever, after a visit last week to Washington, that it will be quite impossible for the American Administration during the next ten years to give Britain help in this field of atomic military matters without offering help on the same terms to the rest of its allies, or at least to its more important European allies.
If we compel the Americans to set this precedent, we shall be creating a tremendous incentive for the Continental European countries to produce their own atomic warheads so that they can get help from the United States in producing their own delivery systems. In my opinion, the American Administration is coming to recognise this, and this explains the mystery of the vanishing Skybolt and why the Skybolt, which was the great deus ex machine of the Government last year, is reduced to a paragraph in the memorandum of the Secre-

tary of State for Air this year. That is because the Minister of Defence knows that if the Americans ever produce Sky-bolt, they will not give it to us except under such stringent control terms as to make the idea of an independent British contribution to the Western deterrent complete nonsense.
I think the Minister of Defence admitted in other parts of his speech that we cannot in this country, nor can any other country, including the United States, hope to be independent in defence. What we must aim at through our alliances, as the Prime Minister has said, is interdependence. The only security offered to any country in this declaration is collective security, and interdependence can only be achieved in an alliance on the basis of specialisation. The Minister of Defence gave the House some impressive examples of how Britain could contribute to the military effectiveness of the Western Alliance by specialising on research and development in certain fields. The one field in which, by our very size, we are prohibited from making a further contribution is that of atomic weapons delivery systems.
I should like the Minister of Defence, or others who may speak later from the Government side, to make a rather more definite comment than the Minister made in his opening speech on the extremely important messages which President Kennedy sent last week, first to the N.A.T.O. Council on the general problems of N.A.T.O. co-operation, and secondly to the West German Government concerning the question of economic burden sharing within the Western Alliance. Do the British Government fully endorse those policies and proposals?
I should like also to hear from some future Government speaker whether Her Majesty's Government agree with the German Defence Minister who is reported as saying in The Times of today that Britain and France are the main obstacle to interdependence in N.A.T.O.'s logistical planning. I have often heard this said by persons who know a great deal more about Government policies than a member of the Opposition in any country is able to learn, and I think, in view of the extreme importance of this statement by the leading member of an allied Administration, that we should at


least have some comment from the British Government on what they think about this problem. But I would insist that if, as I believe, we in Britain must share the burdens of interdependence within N.A.T.O., we must also share in the right to decide what N.A.T.O. strategy should be.
The second major criticism which we should like to make of the Government's defence policy is the Government's failure to press inside N.A.T.O. for the right Western strategy—indeed, in some cases the Government's obstruction of necessary changes in N.A.T.O. strategy which other of the N.A.T.O. allies would have wished. We believe—and we have, stated this point of view in many defence debates over the last few years—that the existing N.A.T.O. strategy in some respects is extremely dangerous. Moreover, we believe that some proposals, which have been made officially, for changes in N.A.T.O. strategy in the immediate future would merely increase the existing dangers of N.A.T.O. strategy.
In our view, the main danger in. N.A.T.O. strategy is that the nature and deployment of N.A.T.O.'s shield forces make it almost inevitable that any local conflict in central Europe must turn into an atomic war. Most of us have tremendous doubts as to whether, once atomic weapons are used, even on the battlefield, there is much chance of halting the progress of events before it leads to all-out total global thermonuclear war.
The main criticism that one would make of the proposed changes in N.A.T.O. strategy, and particularly the proposals put to the N.A.T.O. Council in December by General Norstad, is that his proposal for scattering medium-range ballistic missiles all over the Continent of Europe would make it certain that any limited war in Europe would spread immediately to total war It is no good the Minister of Defence suggesting, as he did, that the proposals made by General Norstad were purely in the field of tactical weapons. General Norstad was asking to have put under his control weapons with a range of 1,500 miles because he wanted them for the purpose of making atomic attacks on targets inside the Soviet Union.
Does the Minister of Defence really believe that it would be possible for N.A.T.O. to drop atomic bombs on targets inside the Soviet Union without almost a certainty of a total Soviet Union response against the whole of the striking forces of the West? He can juggle verbally in Parliament as to the difference between tactical and strategic targets, but if an H-bomb drops on Vukovv Airport, just outside Moscow, and the fall-out blankets the whole of the capital of the Soviet Union, does he think that the Russians will be impressed by the fact that the weapon was aimed at and in fact hit a purely tactical target? Of course he does not think that.
The plain fact is that if this proposal were carried out and if there were any effective political control of the use of these M.R.B.M.s, there is an overwhelming probability that the West would decide not to use them. In fact, the West would have become dependent on weapons which, in an emergency, it was not willing to evoke. The West would be faced with the terrible choice which has always threatened powers since the atomic bomb was first invented, that in an emergency there would he a stark choice between suicide and surrender.
I am very disappointed, as I think we all are, that Her Majesty's Government have not come out openly in the N.A.T.O. Council and in public with these very powerful arguments against the Norstad proposals. I hope that at last in this debate we shall have some intelligent and precise comment upon them from the Government benches.
I am glad to say that I can announce to the House and to the country at large that on one issue on which there was perhaps thought to be serious disagreement on our side, there is no longer any serious disagreement at all; that is, that the West must have atomic weapons as long as the Russians have them. There is no doubt that if one reads the speech made last week by Marshal Sokolovsky, who was recently Chief of the Soviet General Staff, the Russians have these weapons in very large numbers, that they are very effective, and that they are planning to produce more. In a situation in which the other side is at least as fully supplied with these atomic weapons, both battlefield and strategic, as is the West, then it seems


to me that these weapons are a certain deterrent only against their use by the other side. They are a possible deterrent against all sorts of other situations, but they are a certain deterrent only against their use by the other side. For that reason, I believe that we must try in the West to produce a situation in which we do not ever need to use these weapons first.
There is growing agreement—President Kennedy stressed this in an interesting interview which he gave in Washington a few days ago—that the West does not plan to use these strategic thermo-nuclear weapons first. America, as he said, is planning to have a second strike not a first strike strategic force; but it is still unfortunately the situation—and we cannot get away from this—that at the present time the West may face certain challenges from Eastern Europe which it cannot meet by the conventional forces which it now has in Western Europe alone.
Therefore, we believe that the West must now devote great attention to this problem: what steps can we take in order to get out of the situation which we are undoubtedly in at the present time, in which we can be faced with conventional challenges in Europe which we cannot meet unless we use atomic weapons against them? This is a very difficult problem in theory, but I do not believe that it is as difficult in practice as it is in theory. It seems to me that many people who study these problems particularly perhaps in universities and other institutions, make them much more difficult than they really are by refusing even to consider the question of the political context and what the Soviet Union is likely to do.
If we look at the problem as it is in practice and not as it is in theory, then I think that we are all agreed, even Field Marshal Montgomery, which only proves that nobody can be wrong all the time, that there is no substantial danger at the present time in Europe of a deliberate large-scale Soviet attack. The deterrent posture of the West is by itself sufficient to prevent that in practice, even though it may not be sufficient in theory.
The only real danger of war in Europe is a small, local conflict arising in a situation in which the whole spectrum of deterrence would be irrelevant, arising

perhaps just across the Iron Curtain or in East Berlin. No military posture by the West could deter such an incident breaking out in the first place, because such incidents arise because ordinary men and women suddenly feel an irresistible desire to get rid of a local town councillor or to knock off a policeman on the corner. No one can be sure that such a situation will not arise so long as ordinary men and women are living under Governments which they dislike.
I remember last year asking Willy Brandt, the Lord Mayor of Berlin, if he thought that there was any chance today of another rising in East Berlin, such as the one which took place in 1953. He replied very acutely, "No, and I did not think so in 1953 either". This is the real danger. It is a danger to which the whole concept of deterrence is irrelevant. It is, in fact, the only real danger, in my view, which the West now faces in Europe. It is absolutely vital that if such an incident should arise N.A.T.O. should be in a position to halt the conflict locally without using nuclear weapons, without stepping on to the nuclear escalator which leads up to the final catastrophe of all-out thermo nuclear war.
I hope that we shall have some facts and figures given on this because a very large number of us. I think on both sides of the House, have had the unpleasant feeling in the last few years that the organisation of Britain's forces in Germany is a major obstacle to such a policy. Whatever Ministers may say in London, the officers in charge of troops in Germany now rely implicitly on fighting with atomic support, if they have to fight at all. If one talks individually to the officers serving in Germany, one finds that this is their expectation. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) will have a good deal to say about this when he speaks later in the debate.
We all know that the way in which the Rhine Army has been equipped with nuclear weapons is essentially the price paid by the West for the policy of the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in 1957. We were only just able to justify defaulting on the promises made by Mr. Eden in the Brussels Treaty by giving nuclear fire power to half the number of forces that we had originally


undertaken to maintain in Germany. I believe that we must reverse this trend. Our major and most urgent task in N.A.T.O. should be to produce a highly mobile, conventional force which is capable of halting a small scale, local conflict without any recourse whatever to atomic weapons. In order to ensure that this force does not respond with atomic weapons, atomic weapons should be physically withdrawn from the immediate vicinity of the Iron Curtain, because no matter what control mechanism may have been worked out by Governments in peacetime, if once there is danger of an atomic missile being overrun by enemy troops the chance that those on the spot with the physical power to fire it will do so is a real one.
I do not myself believe that in order to achieve this objective it is likely to be necessary for N.A.T.O. greatly to increase the manpower now available to it in Germany because the sort of conflict we are considering now is not a major conventional attack by the Soviet Union but a local outbreak on a very small scale which must be dealt with quickly and which, if it is dealt with quickly, cannot develop into a large-scale attack. What is necessary is that the equipment of the N.A.T.O. troops in Germany should be vastly better than it is now and that our troops in particular should be much more mobile and very much better supplied with conventional artillery and signals equipment. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich. East will have more to say about that when he speaks.

Mr. E. Shinwell: If I may say so in no condescending fashion, this is one of the most intelligent speeches on the subject that I have heard for a long time. I am trying hard to understand one of the points which my hon. Friend makes. He says that a local conflict may occur. He says also, or he implies, that a local conflict may occur in spite of the nuclear deterrent and, if a local conflict does occur, the nuclear deterrent has not prevented the local conflict breaking out. Does he suggest also that a local conflict could develop into a nuclear conflict? If so, I have great difficulty in understanding why he relies on the nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Healey: I can, perhaps, clarify that very briefly by saying that my con-

ception is this. Fighting breaks out because somebody kills a policeman in East Berlin. Soviet troops take part in the fighting. Perhaps it drifts across the frontier and Western troops are involved. It is perfectly true, of course, that the nuclear deterrent has not prevented fighting breaking out, and it could not. But the existence of nuclear capacity on both sides is an effective deterrent for both sides against allowing the conflict to become a bigger one providing that both sides, or at any rate that our side, are capable of dealing with the local conflict rapidly and preventing it from spreading. Then, I think, there is no temptation to the Soviet Union to try to enlarge the conflict, because one already has powerful deterrents against any deliberate decision by the Soviet Union to enlarge the fighting. The danger I foresee is that, if the local Western forces have atomic weapons in their possession, or if there are atomic weapons in the area into which the fighting may drift, then the West may initiate the use of atomic weapons, and at that point it will be extremely difficult to prevent the conflict from spreading.
I come now to the problem of manpower which, I know, worries us all on both sides of the House. I believe that there are two lines along which it is possible to tackle the problem of manpower which the Government have so far shown little or no sign of investigating. In Europe, the obvious line along which the problem of the British contribution to the N.A.T.O. shield forces can best be approached is to try now to see whether we can reach agreement with the Soviet Union to limit arms and forces in both halves of Europe. The basic pre-conditions for such an agreement have existed for a long time. As we all admit, both sides recognise that aggression would be far too dangerous to risk. Each side appears fairly satisfied that the other side will not attack. Therefore, what is required is agreement in a situation which is inherently stable to rule out the possibility of surprise attack and to stabilise the present situation at the lowest possible level of armaments and forces.
I do not want to make a particular party point on this. In fact, the first proposal for such an agreement was made by Mr. Eden, with Mr. Dulles' support,


as far back as 1955. We had valuable and impressive proposals from the Communist side by Mr. Rapacki in 1958, I think it was. When Mr. Macmillan went to Russia eighteen months ago, he reached agreement with Mr. Khrushchev to study the concept. Last year, at the United Nations Assembly, the Polish Prime Minister, Mr. Gomulka, raised the matter again.
I appeal most earnestly to the Government to do their utmost in the next few months to tackle the N.A.T.O. strategic problem along these lines. Nobody can be certain that, if we start, we shall succeed. I myself believe that the chances of success are, if anything, greater than the chances which we all agree to exist of achieving agreement on a nuclear test ban, and I believe that if we could reach agreement on this issue not only would it be by far the best answer to the strategic problems faced in Europe not only by N.A.T.O. but by the Soviet Union but it would create also a precedent for political agreements in Europe and for further steps towards disarmament in the world as a whole, the importance of which it is almost impossible to exaggerate.

Mr. John Beggs-Davison: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving way. I do not quite understand what he proposes. Is he now proposing that there should be a limitation of armaments throughout Europe, not just in one special zone of Europe?

Mr. Healey: What I am proposing is that we talk to the Russians about the general principle of limiting arms and forces in as large an area of Europe as possible, establishing ground control posts to ensure that these limitations are observed and also, perhaps, following the suggestion of Air Marshal Slessor, having overlapping radar screens, Western screens going up to the Polish-Soviet frontier and Soviet screens coming up to the North Sea or, perhaps, into Britain. How far we could reach agreement is entirely a matter for negotiation. The point I make is that the larger the area is the better will be the result. But, of course, the matter does require negotiation among a very large number of Governments. Although I could easily produce a sheaf of blueprints of possible solutions, I think it would be a waste of time to do so.
The other line of attack on which the Government have shown far too little sign of pursuing touches our commitments overseas. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East will be dealing in detail with this matter. The more one travels about the world, the more convinced one becomes that a large number of so-called commitments which the United Kingdom now carries outside the Continent of Europe are out of date and do not make sense in 1961 in either military or political terms. If we look at the military problem, I think we must agree that it is doubtful whether by 1970 this country will have any land bases abroad except in the white countries of the Commonwealth. It is probable that there will be a barrier to the flight of military aircraft stretching from the Soviet Union through the Middle East, through Africa, to the Atlantic.
If we look at the political situation, especially in the light of our experiences in 1956 and 1958, we must conclude, I think, that there will be very few potential situations in which British military intervention would be likely to produce political advantages greater than the certain disadvantages attending it. I know that the Government themselves have already made up their minds that at least one type of intervention is to be ruled out. There are to be no more "Suezes".
I am rather worried in this respect by the prominence given in the White Paper to the Chinese threat. I cannot help wondering whether the generals and admirals are now fighting, a rearguard action and trying to justify the maintenance of inflated establishments by trying to create new commitments against China in the Far East because they know that the Government recognise that commitments in other parts of Africa and Asia may have to be cut.
The only thing in the White Paper which the House can genuinely welcome is a few odd signs here and there that the Government, for the first time since Suez, are beginning to look at the defence problem rationally. When the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations produced his White Paper in 1957, many of us had the very strong feeling that he was clutching at the megaton missile as a sort of virility symbol to compensate for the exposure of Britain's military impotence


at Suez. Since that time one has felt to a large extent that Britain's defence policy required study by a psychiatrist rather than by a military technician.
Although there are signs that the Government are escaping from this phychosis, there are also signs that they are escaping from psychosis simply into a sort of sleeping sickness lit by a few flashes of schizophrenia. There is still no sign of any serious attempt to relate Britain's defence policy to Britain's political aims. The structure of our defence policy as it exists and as it is proposed in the White Paper is likely to be a major obstacle to the success of the West in disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union. In spite of spending nearly £17,000 million since the Government took office, the country is still incapable of meeting any of the military threats which it is likely to meet. For this reason, I ask the House to reject the 1961 Defence White Paper.

5.22 p.m.

Mr. Stephen Hastings: I hope that the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) will forgive me if I do not comment upon his speech. With the hon. Gentleman's concurrence, I prefer to leave that to someone with greater experience than I have.
I know that it is traditional for maiden speaker to avoid controversy. This I am most anxious to do. At the same time, I wish to try to make a contribution of some sort, especially in a debate as important as this, and for that reason, I propose to put forward a proposition. I shall do my best not to be contentious and I hope very much that I shall not tax the forbearance of hon. Members too greatly.
I wish to discuss two separate and distinct aspects of the defence problem. The first concerns the type of emergency with which we had to deal and from which we suffered in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus. I believe that there is an analogy between the activities in those three emergencies. I have seen enough of this kind of activity in my life to hope most fervently that we shall not be called upon again to cope with anything of the sort, but I suppose that, in the present state of the world, it would be a bold man who could predict that with

certainty. In any case, such an eventuality may, I think, fairly be discussed within the confines of this debate.
It is clear from the White Paper and from what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence has said that we can fly our conventional forces to any area of emergency with considerable speed. and, indeed, with increasing speed as time passes, and this is much to be welcomed. But I am not so much concerned with that aspect this afternoon as with what these conventional formations can or cannot do when they arrive.
Conventional formations and units are vital in a situation of this kind, for three reasons. First, they give confidence to the unfortunate people whose only crime is that they happen to live in the troubled area. Secondly, they serve to contain the emergency—that is, they prevent it generating into mass activity of one kind or another. Thirdly, they are necessary for a multiplicity of guard duties. But, in my submission, conventional units are not best equipped to penetrate to the core of this kind of trouble or to put a stop to it; which means that the capture of the leaders and their supplies of arms is necessary. I think that for this task an unconventional approach is necessary This is expensive neither in money nor in men. But there are two essential prerequisites—first, accurate information and, secondly, experience of this sort of thing. I do not propose to say anything about the first other than to comment that without accurate prior information no amount of experience of this activity will be of any avail.
Concerning experience, we should by this time know a great deal about the sort of techniques to which I am alluding—techniques of resistance, terrorism, subversion, or whatever one likes to call them. We learned much about them during the war and since then we have, unhappily, seen variations on the same theme in the jungles of the Far East, in the African forests and in the mountains and towns of the Levant. This activity can be as much political—even social or, if one likes, anti-social—as military. It comprises the intimidation, even the murder, of innocent people in order to spread fear. We know the disruptive possibilities of sabotage and of the apparatus of secret communications


with the outside world, and so on. We know that all this can be governed and ruled by the particular and strange psychology of resistance, which is a very real thing.
But the experience to which I have referred is the property of individuals, although it also rests in the files. Now, as I understand it, towards the end of each of the three emergencies to which I have referred we trained a number of officers and N.C.O.s in these techniques. But when the emergency was over these men dispersed. They were posted to other units and subsequently lost as a body, with the result that, when the next emergency arose, they were not readily available; and it is not unfair to say that we were compelled to relearn the lessons which perhaps we should have known at the beginning which we had certainly learned in the past.
This knowledge should not be considered as a severely specialist subject. Rather should it form part and parcel of the training of all officers and men of the reserve liable for service in an emergency of this kind. I would go further and suggest, with respect to my right hon. Friend, that there might be a case for the raising or formation of special units composed, naturally, of men of a high calibre who are carefully trained and able to live and work in groups of two or three rather than in conventional platoons and companies, in discomfort, if necessary, well away from the N.A.A.F.I. or even the cookhouse, and able to stay doggedly and patiently on the trail of a quarry as elusive and dangerous as can be.
There is in an emergency of this nature a whole range of para-military tasks which do not necessarily fit within the normal duties of either the policeman or the conventional soldier. It is this gap that should be filled, not after such an emergency has begun but as a permanent feature of our defensive arrangements. In addition to numbers of troops who, as I have tried to indicate, are necessary, we need a precision instrument ready at all times to ensure that terrorism of this type is cut off at once rather than allowed to sputter on while the political wound festers and the bitterness spreads.
The second part of my speech, which I hasten to assure the House, is very

short, concerns paragraphs 23 and 24 of the White Paper, and these phrases have already been referred to by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Defence and by the hon. Member for Leeds, East. Paragraph 23 says:
A narrow, nationalist policy for the choice and production of arms makes no sense today.
Paragraph 24 refers to interdependence as meaning:
The interchange of research and development techniques…
This is something in which I most strongly believe. I feel that it is here as much as anywhere that we could work towards the reduction of the enormous cost of our defence programme. The example I wish to give may be somewhat over-simplified, but in my present state of knowledge it seems to make sense. If, as a Power in the free world, a country like Britain or France or West Germany intends to build an aircraft of revolutionary characteristics—for instance, one with a Mach 2 or even Mach 3 capability, or one with vertical take off—it will, and does, cost the country concerned a very great deal of money.
Furthermore, the limited budget involved in most cases will have to be divided between research and development of the engine, on the one hand, and the airframe, the wings, the electronic system and all the other components on the other hand. When the project reaches production, the only certain market after all this expense is the requirements of the national air force involved. This may be relatively small, with the result that the operation turns out to be grossly uneconomic.
If, by international agreement, the research and development could be divided so that one nation could concentrate its resources entirely, for the sake of argument, on the development of the engine, and the other participants pursued separate lines of research, the cost of the project would be much less and the potential market would be much wider. One might then sell a thousand engines rather than 150. Such a system could, I suppose, apply only to major projects, considered necessary for the corporate defence of the West, and these might be selected by some such body as the N.A.T.O. Armament Commission.
On the other hand, there would be no need for rigidity; that is to say, if this country concentrated on the development of engines, there would be nothing to preclude our technicians in other branches from co-operating in international research at the same time; and there would be nothing to prevent other nations developing projects for their own use if they considered it necessary for their own defence requirements. Lastly, projects brought to fruition on this international basis would become the sole property of the sovereign nation concerned once the project came into service.
I know that this argument carries wide implications, and it may be that I have under-estimated the difficulties or that I am ignorant of them, but, in conclusion, I should like to make two reflections on the theme. First, the sort of specialisation I have advocated seems to me to be no more than the extension of a trend already long established in every freely-developing economy. Secondly, an agreement like this would tend to force the Powers of the free world to depend on each other in a new and all-important field. I believe that we must come to depend upon each other in this way or we may well "pend" separately.
Before I conclude, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I should like, in all humility, to pay tribute to the noble Lord, as he now is, who formerly sat for the constituency I now have the honour to represent. I am sure that the House would welcome this. I know of his great skill in debate, and that he has often enthralled this House. I believe, too, that in his long career in this House he made a vast contribution, not only to his country as a statesman but to the welfare of his constituency as well, where, I know, he was and is much loved and greatly missed. Of his many attainments and gifts, the one to which I should particularly like to refer on this occasion is his unfailing consideration and kindness for his neighbour. No greater quality can man possess than this.

5.36 p.m.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: On behalf of the whole House, on behalf of his colleagues on all the benches, I offer sincere congratulations to the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) on his maiden speech. He has

given us a brief and modest, but very thoughtful and constructive, contribution, and I can assure him that the House will wish to hear him again soon, and often, in times to come.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), who made such an admirable speech this afternoon, I want to deal with paragraph 1 of the White Paper. When one puts something first in a document like this one may have one of two purposes in mind. One may think it the vitally significant thing one may have to say, which governs all the rest; or one may wish to make a gesture to silence critics, and then to bury it with the mass of other and, perhaps, contradictory matter that one judges to be the really important message one has to get across. I hope that the Minister of Defence has put his first paragraph in his White Paper with the first of those two purposes in mind.
I quote his wards again:
There is only one answer to the threat to mankind posed by armaments"—
only one answer:
This is to reach a satisfactory agreement on general disarmament under effective international control.
The right hon. Gentleman goes on to say:
The Government intend to press for this by all means in their power…
Other Conservative Ministers of Defence in recent years have used phrases in their White Papers with the same general purport; none has said it with such emphasis as this, none has given such a categorical pledge that the Government will press for it:
…by all means in their power…
I should like to feel that the Minister thinks of this pledge as personally binding on him; that he will regard it as the most important part of his Ministerial duties; that he recognises that there is much that he can do for its fulfilment; and not much that others can do, without his active help. For, surely, if what he says is true, this is the most important of his duties:
There is only one answer to the threat to mankind posed by armaments.
In other words, general disarmament is the only effective form of national defence; or, as his predecessor said, armaments are only a very dangerous second-best".
But I am not much encouraged by the words which follow the Minister's pledge that the Government will press for general disarmament by all means in their power. For then the Minister goes on to say, as so many of his predecessors have said, that
we should not under-estimate the difficulties of the task, or the length of time that it may take to accomplish it.
The Government, all the Ministers of Defence and all the Foreign Secretaries, have been saying precisely that ever since they took office more than nine years ago.
What has happened in those nine years? The arms race has gone on with an intensity and a momentum which increase every year. In that time our British expenditure on military research and development, by far the most important item in the appropriations for which the Minister asks, has more than trebled; United States expenditure on research has been multiplied by ten; and Russia's, I have no doubt, by even more. What has been the result? That armaments, in the Minister's phrase, have become a threat to all mankind; but also that the disarmament which he says is the only answer has become technically, and perhaps politically, much more difficult to attain. In 1951 there were no H-bombs, virtually no nuclear stocks at all, no danger of the clandestine nuclear stock, no supersonic bombers, no missiles worthy of the name, no nuclear-powered submarines; Governments had not begun to make their recent development of "biologicals" and poison gases as major weapons of mass destruction.
Now after these nine years the Minister still speaks of the "length of time" that it may take to get disarmament and of the difficulties which must be over-come. He goes on to explain in the whole of the rest of his White Paper that we can keep the peace by the policy of deterrence, and that the V-bombers will be able to deliver the deterrent for another ten years to come. I was at the Air Ministry when the V-bomber was being conceived. I find the last paragraph of the White Paper very dangerously complacent.
But I do not desire to discuss this afternoon the technical, the highly debatable technical aspects, of what the Minister said. I only want to press on him that nearly all the scientists of all

the countries are agreed that the constant increase in the number of nuclear weapons, and the prospective increase in the number of nuclear Powers, of which my hon. Friend has spoken, are making it mathematically more likely that at some unknown future date a conflict will begin. I was at a Pugwash Conference in Moscow in December. There were seventy scientists there, many of whom, from both sides of the Iron Curtain, in Britain, the United States and Russia, had taken part in making the nuclear weapons, and who were still in touch with all the weapon developments now going on. They declared without a dissentient voice that general disarmament was very urgent. They spoke—I quote their words—of the
acute danger of accidental war.
The word "acute" was inserted after debate and full consideration. But the Minister implies—I do not want to do him an injustice—that by the first four lines of the White Paper his duty about disarmament has been fulfilled, and that he can safely neglect the subject till he has to think up some similiar phrases, if he still holds his present office, in twelve months' time.
My purpose this afternoon is to argue that the Minister has a great, an urgent and an over-riding responsibility in this matter; that it is for him to take the lead in dawing up the technical plans for disarmament which are required; that he should treat this as the most, and not the least, important of his tasks.
I have been concerned with disarmament negotiations in one way or another since the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919. I believe that the Minister can help powerfully to secure immediate progress, that he can do much to prevent the locusts from eating another ten years. I have tried to impress upon the Prime Minister at Question Time that British experts—some of them, perhaps most of them, the Minister's experts, scientists and military men—should draw up a detailed draft disarmament plan, preferably in treaty form, and should lay this before the Disarmament Commission or Committee of the United Nations as a British proposal. No one can read the endless debates in the U.N. over the last fifteen years without feeling that it is urgently necessary to end the wrangles


about headline objectives, both sides saying in broad terms that they want disarmament, neither setting out in detail how in practice they think it can be done.
Let me be more specific about what I am proposing. In March, 1933, Sir Anthony Eden, with the help of General Temperley, the representative of the War Office—to whose memory I should like to pay a tribute today—with the help of General Temperley, of experts from the Admiralty and the Air Ministry, prepared a complete draft disarmament convention, with all the technical clauses and schedules, with all the figures of armament and force reductions to be made in the first stage of the treaty, which he laid before the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. That was in March, 1933. That Convention was nine months too late. Hitler had come to power. But I know no one who was there, who lived through those months in the Conference, as I did, who does not believe that if Sir Anthony's draft convention had been put forward in June, 1932, an agreement could have been obtained, with what results on history we all of us may guess.
In November, 1952, I urged on Sir Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary, that he should instruct the British delegation to the U.N. to repeat what he had himself done twenty years before. I venture to quote the words I used:
I want to urge on the Foreign Secretary that the Western proposals…give us…an ample foundation for an all-round treaty. The Commission should go ahead and write out its proposals on all these technical points. … The Commission should draw up a treaty showing, clause by clause and schedule by schedule, exactly what the first step towards a disarmed world would really mean.… I believe that such a document would have an immense impact on the opinion of the world. It would prove that the Western nations really do mean peace, and are ready as soon as possible to move towards it.
Sir Anthony Eden, replying, said:
I have the point and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I do not see why, beyond a certain period, we should wait for the Soviet Union.…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th November, 1952 Vol. 507, c. 319–368.]
which was then obstructing.
Sir Anthony Eden said that, but nothing was done; and nothing has since been done of the kind which Sir Anthony

carried through in 1933. Years after that debate in 1952, in 1957 or 1958, if I remember rightly, the Prime Minister talked of the Anglo-French Memorandum of 1954 as the best disarmament plan which anyone had yet prepared. Of course, it was not a plan at all. It was a statement of first stage objectives; a good statement, which we supported. which we would support now, but nothing more.
I want to urge on the Minister—I hope that the Secretary of State for Air will pass on to him what I say—that one of the advantages of drawing up the kind of draft convention I have suggested, as Sir Anthony did, would be to show that the technical difficulties of disarmament —the "great complexities" of which people so often speak—are far less than is generally believed.
Indeed, if the Minister would start on this exercise, I believe that he would find so far as conventional forces and armaments are concerned, that Sir Anthony's draft treaty clauses, together with the Washington and London Treaties of Naval Disarmament of 1922 and 1930, solve virtually all the technical problems that arise in dealing with armies, navies and air forces; in limiting manpower and in preventing the secret building-up of trained reserves; in abolishing or reducing and limiting weapons, tanks, guns, aircraft and warships; and in establishing budgetary limitation and control, a vitally important matter, and one on which the very thorough work of thirty years ago is still wholly applicable today.
If the Minister starts on this exercise, I believe that he will find that the technical problems posed by the newer weapons, the nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and the danger of the clandestine nuclear stock. can be dealt with by the plans which were first proposed by the British United Nations Association in its remarkable pamphlet, "A Policy for Disarmament". This was prepared by a working party which had highly qualified naval, military and air advice and which included members of all political parties and of none.
Those proposals for dealing with the danger of a clandestine nuclear stock by the abolition of the means of delivery—the bombing aircraft, the missiles, the launching ramps, the submarines, and so


on—were taken up and put forward by M. Moch in the Committee of Ten in Geneva, last March. They were supported by President de Gaulle in speeches to our Parliament, to the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, and to the United States Congress in Washington, a year ago. They have been endorsed, in guarded terms, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was Foreign Secretary.
They have been endorsed in the United States proposals of 27th June last year, though it was not at all clear at which stage the abolition of the means of delivery would be begun. The preparation of a detailed plan such as I am suggesting would show to all people of all parties and in all parts of the country that in what they are pleased to call the "immense complexities" of disarmament, solutions would be relatively easy to find. It is the duty of the Minister to help in that respect.
There is one special point on which a new and detailed British plan would be of particular value at the present time, namely, inspection and control. The Prime Minister proposed in the United Nations Assembly, last September, that that problem should be submitted to an international committee of experts, though he did not propose to put a British plan forward as the basis of the committee's work. When I suggested at Question Time last week that the Government should expand the Prime Minister's proposal by adding disarmament to inspection, the Lord Privy Seal replied that it was on inspection that the difference between the West and Russia was greatest. If the right hon. Gentleman meant—and I think that he did—that the Russians are behind the West in accepting inspection and control, I say that that is not true today and has not been true since 1955.
It was in 1957 that Mr. Stassen, the United States delegate, said in the United Nations subcommittee, at Lancaster House, that:
There was a time when there was in my country considerable support of a very extreme form of control and inspection.…We have concluded that that extreme form of control and inspection is not practical, feasible or attainable.
The Foreign Secretary admitted later, in debate in 1958, that the inspection clauses

of the plans that we were putting forward then amounted to almost nothing at all. But last year in a plan which he intended to lay before the abortive Summit and which he put to the Committee of Ten on 7th June, Mr. Khrushchev went far towards accepting real inspection.
When, in September last, in the United Nations Assembly debate, Mr. Khrushchev interrupted the Prime Minister, it was to say that if the West would accept the Russian approach to disarmament, Russia would accept our approach to inspection. I confess that I do not see what more Mr. Khrushchev could have said in general principle than he put into his proposal of objectives in his paper of 7th June. The Minister could clear up this vital point if he drew the plan which I suggest.
I repeat that it is time that the disarmament negotiations got beyond the stage of general phrases. It is time that Britain played the decisive part which I think could be hers. I heard the other day an eye-witness account of the preparations in the Kremlin before Mr. Khrushchev made his disarmament speech in the United Nations in September, 1959. I was told that there was an immense amount of activity in almost every department of the Russian Government. The general staffs, the scientists, the Foreign Office, and Mr. Khrushchev's personal assistants were all mobilised to study every problem that could arise, all that had happened in the past, and every proposal, "partial" or "comprehensive," that had ever been made.
President Kennedy has just set up a new and powerful administration under Mr. John McCloy, a man who will be nobody's stooge, to reassess American policy on disarmament and defence. I hope that our Government will do the same. I hope that they will follow the line that I have suggested and will make now the major contribution which our people wish them to make towards the finding of the only answer to the danger that threatens all mankind.

5.57 p.m.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: This debate is taking place in the fourth year of a five-year defence plan. I hope that the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker)


will not think it discourteous of me if I suggest that the main interest of the debate is the shape of the successor to the five-year plan. I hope, at any rate that he will forgive me if I make this the main theme of my speech and do not follow him on the topic which, despite its great importance, seems to me somewhat off the main path of the debate.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence opened the debate by taking his stand on the ground that he stood by the broad framework of the five-year plan. He said that that broad framework remains unchanged and that what had changed was knowledge and weapons. This surely is an understatement. I question whether my right hon. Friend, either in the White Paper or in his speech, has faced the full implications of everything that has happened since 1957. It is not unlikely that history will describe the 1957 White Paper as the last attempt by this country to maintain an independent status.
It was an attempt to cover the whole gamut of weapons appropriate to an independent State while dropping the precautions which our limited resources do not enable us to afford—by dropping, for instance, manned aircraft prematurely in favour of the rocket. But it was an attempt to maintain an independent status. What we are witnessing is the visible collapse of that aspiration after independence and what worries me is that as yet I see no clear discernment of what we are to put in the place of this collapsing independence.
One concrete change, and one change only, has so far been made in the 1957 plan, and that is the dropping of Blue Streak. It has become perfectly apparent in the White Paper and in the speech of my right hon. Friend that the dropping of Blue Streak did not imply the dropping of an independent contribution to the deterrent. I confess that I am rather baffled by the distinction between an independent deterrent and an independent contribution to the deterrent. None the less, while Blue Streak is dropped, there is still an attempt to maintain an independent contribution to the deterrent. What we are witnessing is a change in the vehicle, a re-substitution of the manned aircraft for the rocket. In other

words, the White Paper of 1957 killed the manned aircraft in favour of the rocket; the White Paper of 1961 has resurrected the aircraft and killed the rocket. The idea, however, of an independent contribution to the deterrent is retained.

Mr. R. T. Paget: Is not the distinction quite a simple one? The independent contribution to the deterrent is a deterrent which is dependent on the Americans. The independent deterrent—and that was what was always conceived of—is a deterrent which is independent of the Americans. That is all.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: I was about to come to that point. Whether we describe it as an independent deterrent or an independent contribution, clearly it is independence only in a very restricted and technical sense. It is independence in the sense that if things came to the worst, while the warhead was one's own even though the vehicle came from elsewhere, one was free to press the button oneself. This is very limited and technical independence. The fact remains none the less that we are dependent on another country for the main vehicle to carry the nuclear warhead.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: I have myself, on an earlier occasion, raised this very point about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) is speaking, as to whether or not the Defence White Paper of 1957 meant the end of manned aircraft for the delivery of the deterrent. I agree that if one reads the one paragraph which refers to V-bombers one can interpret it that way, but has not my right hon. Friend forgotten that paragraph 58 of the same White Paper indicated that research and development would go on?

Mr. Aubrey Jones: The last thing that I want to do is to indulge in semantics. The simple point that I am making is that we still retain the idea of an independent contribution to the deterrent. None the less, we are dependent for the vehicle on another country. There seems to me to be a danger that if one clings to the idea of an independent contribution to the deterrent and if one is dependent upon another country for the vehicle, one is


under a temptation to insure against the non-delivery of the foreign vehicle by producing another vehicle of one's own.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Aubrey Jones: I have already given way on two occasions.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: My intervention will be quite short. The vehicle is surely a bomber.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: The vehicle from another country is the Skybolt, which is not a bomber; it is a missile to be carried by a bomber.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: It will be carried by the V-bomber.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: Perhaps I may continue my speech.
I was making the point that if one clings to the idea of an independent contribution to the deterrent when one is reliant on another country for the main vehicle, one is under a temptation to produce another vehicle of one's own as an insurance against a non-delivery of the foreign vehicle. I wonder whether this is not the true meaning of paragraph 17 of the White Paper, which indicates that over the next ten years Bomber Command will carry a variety of missiles. British and American.
The only British missile at the moment, apart from the free-falling bomb, is Blue Steel Mark I, which will take us forward a few more years but certainly not ten years. I wonder whether this statement, coupled with the remarks of my right hon. Friend this afternoon when he talked about other possibilities in the way of delivery systems, does not mean that there is an intention to substitute yet another British weapon as an insurance against the possible failure of the Skybolt. I hope that my suspicions are ill-founded. I cannot imagine a greater folly than to cancel a weapon which is reasonably one's own after an abortive expenditure of £100 million and to rely on a weapon from elsewhere and then to take out an insurance policy against the possible failure of that weapon from elsewhere.
This, to my mind, would be sheer madness. I am driven to the conclusion that within a few years from now any talk about the desirability or undesira-

bility of this country's making an independent contribution to the nuclear deterrent will be purely and utterly theoretical. I think that we are face to face with the plain fact that once the Blue Streak weapon had gone this country ceased to be able to develop and manufacture a deterrent weapon which was up to date. I am not at all sure—this is the source of my disturbance—that this truth is recognised, but I am afraid that until it is recognised I see no settled defence planning.
I suggest, then, that the attempt to maintain an independent contribution to the deterrent has failed. The attempt at independence in the tactical atomic field is also, I think, bound to fail. Again, I do not want to be drawn into semantics, and I apologise for the use of the words "tactical" and "strategic"; what is "strategic" to the Army is "tactical" to the Air Force. The jargon is there, and one is driven to use it.
If one takes, for instance, among the larger tactical weapons, Blue Water, the ground-to-ground weapon in which, as I understand from the Press, we have endeavoured to interest the Germans—the Germans have decided to take the American Sergeant, but we are going on with Blue Water—to the best of my knowledge Blue Water is a corps weapon to be used at corps level. How many corps are we likely to have? One Army corps in West Germany? Is it worth while producing at great cost a weapon to furnish one Army corps?
Again, I suggest that the attempt at maintaining independence is visibly collapsing, in part, of course, due to our limited resources. However, I doubt whether this is the entire story. It would, I think, be less than patriotic if we did not concede that the weapons programme as now constituted does not, in fact, conform with an objectively shaped plan. To the best of my opinion, it is a sum of items, a large number of them designed for no better purpose than to promote the interest of an individual Service. There is nothing more tragic, to my mind, than the spectacle of the Royal Air Force, young as a Service, having enjoyed a brief period of glory, now seeing its whole purpose threatened with destruction and reacting, as I see it, with extravagant claims and advocacy.

Mr. Wigg: Hear, hear.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: My right hon. Friend this afternoon indicated certain measures to which he was resorting with a view to rationalising the weapons programme. However, I doubt whether he touched the real crux of the problem. Surely the crux of the problem is that the long-term advice on defence planning made available to the Minister of Defence is given by officers who are also the commanders-in-chief of their own individual Services.
It seems to me, therefore, that they are placed in an impossible dilemma. If they are objective they risk letting down the Service for the maintenance of whose morale they are responsible. On the other hand, if they shout the odds for an individual Service they do so at the expense of the national defence plan. This, it seems to me, is the crux of the problem, and I see no attempt as yet to touch it.

Mr. Watkinson: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will admit that the Ministry of Defence has a Chief Scientific Adviser responsible for giving the Minister advice.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: I am not suggesting that that is not the case, but, despite everything that has been done, despite the increases in the powers of the Minister of Defence, and despite the existence of the Chief Scientific Adviser, the objective advice on long-term defence planning remains deficient, and that is the crux of the problem
Independence, I suggest, is breaking down. What can be put in its place? My right hon. Friend says "interdependence", and, of course, he is right. But the question does not end there. There are several pertinent questions to be asked about interdependence. First, interdependence with whom? Is it mainly with the United States, or is it mainly with the countries of Continental Western Europe?
As a matter of history, it would be true to say that this country, so far, has thought of interdependence mainly in Anglo-American terms, partly as a legacy of the war, and partly as part of the chronology of interdependence. The use of the word first arose after the visit paid by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to Washington in, I believe, October, 1957. Later, in December,

1957, the idea was extended to the whole of N.A.T.O. But we have thought of it primarily in Anglo-American terms.
I question whether, even in Anglo-American terms, it is now of the value which it was. I suspect that the value of the exchanges of nuclear information which we have had with the United States is declining, and I certainly do not think that those exchanges have given this country any influence at all over American strategic thinking. But—and this is my main point—in so far as we primarily pursue interdependence with the United States, then I suggest that this makes more difficult interdependence with Western Europe.
I want to give two concrete examples, which are quite apart from any feeling of resentment which Europe may have as a result of our so-called special relationship with the United States. Take, first, the F.N. rifle. We adopted the F.N. continental rifle, but introduced into the design considerable modifications in order to stay in line with the Americans. But they, after we had decided on the modifications, withdrew from the weapon. We were left, therefore, with an unnecessary bill and with a certain legacy of resentment on the Continent.
Again, there was the example of Blue Streak. This was a weapon based on an American model. The very fact that it was based on an American model made it much more difficult for this country to have any collaboration with the Western European countries on a long-range ballistic missile. I suspect that even now, when we are talking of collaborating with European countries on the use of Blue Streak for space, the fact that it is based on the American model is some impediment to collaboration.
We must decide—and this is the heart of the national dilemma—in which of the two frameworks we are likely to exercise a larger influence. I maintain that the likelier framework is European and not American. But we have to choose, anyhow.
The second question I would like to ask on the topic of interdependence is whether there is a real prospect of interdependence with European countries while this country remains apart from the Six. The discussion of the Six and Seven problem in this country has been couched almost exclusively in economic


terms. I suggest that the problem has quite an important military aspect to it.
There is no doubt that, although the agreements of the Six are couched as yet in economic terms, the fact of their sharing a common political aim has led them to conclude with each other preferential arrangements in arms, from which, alas, this country is excluded. But I go further than that. I would contend that the whole Six and Seven problem is fundamentally a military and not an economic problem.
This problem touches the basic fundamentals of power. It has become fashionable to lament the division of Europe into two parts. I suggest that the more important and the more pertinent problem of this country is that this country's interests are now divided into two parts. Economically, we are forming links with the Seven, but militarily our links must remain with the Six, because the Six remain our main European allies.
It cannot help one with one's military alliances to be forming economic ties in one direction while one's military ties are in another direction. Surely, in the light of history, it is the military link rather than the economic which matters the more. It does not argue the pursuit of a clearly conceived national purpose that we should have landed ourselves in this position—this unhappy and embarrassing position, as I see it—of straddle.
I recognise, of course, that the condition of this country's entry into the Six is now the acceptance of the ultimate goal of political unity. So far we have shrunk from this. But can we sensibly talk of interdependence without accepting that ultimate goal? Interdependence means that we as one country rely on other countries for certain crucial weapons. Are we likely to promote this interdependence while withholding our acceptance of the ultimate end of political unity?
Does not this also go to the root of the whole problem of N.A.T.O.? The problems of N.A.T.O.—particularly the questions of competitive nuclear effort as between one country and another, and the political control over nuclear weapons, small or large—surely go to the fundamental question of what is our conception of N.A.T.O.? Is it an asso-

ciation of independent States, or is it to be something politically more cohesive? Can it continue to exist effectively unless we make it politically more cohesive?
How do we give political cohesion to a straggling alliance of 15 countries? I suggest that we can do it only in one way—by slowly and patiently building up compact political groups from below. So I come back, as I see it, to the fundamental question of the Six. In other words, I am trying to suggest that we have been forced off the perch of independence, but that we are not likely to make a success of interdependence either unless we are prepared to go some steps further than we are prepared to go now.
Lastly, I want to say something about manpower. My right hon. Friend expressed his confidence—though, I thought, with certain qualifications—that the manpower target would be reached. In my experience, in all exercises of statistical forecasting there are always two schools of thought—the pessimist and the optimist. Both schools introduce a considerable subjective element into their different estimates.
I shall not prophesy. I can only note that it appears to be one of the more serious problems of the affluent society that it is difficult for us to attract recruits to the public service. It is difficult to believe that the Army, with a not entirely up-to-date public image, will be able to exempt itself from that trend. Be that as it may, it is prudent to reckon with the possibility that the target of 180,000 men will be unattained and that we may rest at about 165,000, or even less, even a couple of years after 1963.
Will that figure be adequate? I have not yet had the advantage of listening to the speech of the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), but I do not see how anybody outside Whitehall can seriously say that this or that figure will suffice for our commitments. I notice that in the various statements on defence which it put out last week, the party opposite expressed its conviction that volunteer forces would suffice to meet our commitments. My experience is that when anyone says that he is convinced without giving evidence, there is prima facie a case for thinking that he has not thought the matter out, which is why he has not adduced evidence.

Mr. Wigg: The right hon. Gentleman must be fair to my right hon. and hon. Friends. What they have said is not that we can meet the commitments, but that the Army would be big enough if we cut the commitments, which is very different.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: I shall leave the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends to their own altercations on defence.
I do not know whether the figure will suffice to meet the commitments or not, but there are two facts which constitute a presumption that a figure of 165,000, or even 170,000, will be insufficient. The first is that when this target was set. in 1957, there was implied a greater rundown of the forces in Germany than has since taken place, or than we now think ought to take place. Whatever contraction there may be in our overseas commitments, I doubt whether it is likely to bridge that gap. The second is that the amalgamation of regiments was based on the assumption of an Army of 200,000 men. If we have an Army of even 180,000 men, units will be below strength. If we get down still further, to 170,000 or 165,000, I do not see how we can avoid a further amalgamation of regiments, and a second amalgamation on top of the first would be disastrous for the morale of the Army.
It seems not impossible in the light of those two facts that we may find ourselves at an impasse. If the figure of 165,000, or even 170,000, is reached, that figure will be within the range of the Government's target, and on that account it would be very difficult at that moment to return to any form of selective service.
If I understand the Government's policy aright, they elect to wait, hoping against hope that the impasse will not, in fact, arise. Just because there is a distinct possibility that it will arise, it is surely preferable to take steps now—what steps one can—to avoid its arising. There seems to be only one way of avoiding it and that is now to start to change one's philosophy.
The philosophy of 1957, put in its most respectable form, was that with the threat of nuclear retaliation, only small forces could be committed, or dared be exposed to the field of battle, and that, therefore, only small forces were wanted in defence against them.
It has become perfectly apparent that that concept of defence no longer has any popular support and has lost a great deal of its former military support. It has become a highly precarious basis for defence, because it is defence based in the last resort on nuclear bluff, and that is true whether one is thinking of small-scale atomic or large-scale atomic weapons.
I therefore agree with the broad aim of the West's seeking a parity of forces with the East on all levels—strategic, tactical and conventional. When I say "parity" I speak subject to the qualification that one needs a lower ratio of forces for defence than for offence. Subject to that qualification, I agree with the broad aim—and I understood this to be the belief of the hon. Member for Leeds. East—of parity of forces with the East at all levels. But that is to raise certain crucial questions from which the hon. Member for Leeds. East ran away.
First, if we are now to switch our emphasis from a reply by the use of atomic weapons to a reply at least initially with conventional forces, is it consistent, in an age of interdependence, to abide by our traditional precept that the brunt of any attack must first be borne by the Continent itself? Is it consistent, in an age of interdependence and while consciously seeking interdependence, that this country should be the one country without any form of National Service? Despite all the difficulties of selective service, on those broad grounds I have come to the conclusion that some form of selective service is unavoidable.
I make one plea to the Government. On this issue they have to make up their minds within the next nine months. The abolition of National Service was first pressed for by the party opposite. My own party followed, partly on the ground that this was an issue which it hesitated to take to the electorate. I ask the Government, in reconsidering the matter, to have an eye on not only what the electors may say about them tomorrow, but on what the history books may say about them in twenty or twenty-five years' time. I ask them to place before us the full implications of the difficult choices that we have to make, and, this time, to treat us as an adult democracy.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. F. J. Bellenger: I am almost constrained to congratulate the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) on his speech. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) congratulated the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) on his maiden speech and asked him to take part in our future debates, and I must, therefore, request the right hon. Member for Hall Green to take part in our defence debates as often as he can. Her Majesty's Opposition have apparently enlisted a powerful recruit, because, although the right hon. Gentleman criticised the Government's present policy, he was responsible in part for the 1957 White Paper which, he said, was now sunk without trace.
I do not know in what form the Question will be put tomorrow night, but the right hon. Gentleman will have a problem more difficult than that which we are now discussing. He will either have to support the Motion, which says that the House approves the White Paper, which he has conclusively shown he does not, or he will have to vote for the Amendment and say, with the Opposition, that he has no confidence that the policy set out in the White Paper will effectively provide for the defence of Britain.
However the right hon. Gentleman votes, he has shown to the House today, quite sincerely, that he at least on the Government benches does not believe, as we do not believe, that the White Paper offers, in 1961, a reasonable preparation for the defence of this country and of our interests and those of our allies. Her Majesty's Government had better keep the right hon. Gentleman far away from Germany, because he is not a good salesman for Blue Streak, if, indeed, there were any salesman today who could sell that weapon in Europe for any purpose. I begin to understand now why it is that the German Minister of Defence and others in Germany are not prepared to subscribe to further research work on Blue Streak for any purpose whatever, civil or military.
I want, briefly, to examine what lies behind the Government's thinking, if they have any clear thinking, on this problem. For that purpose right hon. and hon. Members who have studied

defence matters either in office or out of it have to consider who are the experts, because Ministers come and go. We know that Defence Ministers go quite frequently and have very little time to concentrate on the problem. It is the general staffs of the Service Departments and of the Ministry of Defence who give their minds to this problem, and they have to work on certain assumptions.
Every staff order issued in the field in battle contains various sections. One is "information", and I suggest that the Minister of Defence has given us very little, either today or in his White Paper, and I shall have a few remarks to make on that presently. Another is "objective", and we are not sure what the objective is to be, because, unlike war, when a Prime Minister can issue a directive to his commanders to destroy the enemy, we cannot do that in peace time.
The initiative is with the enemy. I will not attempt to indicate who is the enemy, but we know that poised against Europe, and not only against Europe but against different targets in the world, is a mighty Power, Russia, where democratic practices do not play the same rôle as they do in the Western world. They can mobilise their satellites and their forces—and they are tremendous forces—and if they feel like it they can launch them against the West. Therefore, the general staffs, in considering this much debated subject of nuclear strategy and tactical nuclear weapons, are faced with considering what form any attack or any aggression would take if it came.
I think that the Minister of Defence said this afternoon, and certainly my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) said, that all the military critics everywhere today say that global war is out. I hope it is, but, nevertheless, we must not forget that there is one great Power coming up in the Far East, China, which does not say that.
Many people there—and I believe that this is the cause of trouble between them and Russia—think that a global war, with strategic nuclear weapons, would benefit them, and that the Western nations would be wiped out. They do not say what would happen to Russia. I remember—and this is not a bad illustration of military thinking—that for ten


years after the First World War that was the policy of at any rate most of the European countries, that there would be no major war, and yet it happened.
I am not going to put myself against all the military experts and say that there will be total nuclear war, but I say that it can never be absent from the minds of the staff planners. Indeed, I know from my early days in the War Office, after the war, that it was there, and that many Cabinet and military papers were written envisaging the possibility of a war which included that weapon. I would not be surprised if the Russian military staff do the same sort of thing. Military staffs all over the world work in a more or less uniform manner. They deal with military issues which cannot take into account political problems to the same extent as Foreign Secretaries can.
There is also, of course, in the minds of all military planners the form of weapons they shall give to their troops. After all, many countries, whether in an alliance or not, have troops all over the place. It is no good having troops if they have no weapons with which to fight if called on to do so, or at least to defend themselves.
I go so far as to say—and I think that most hon. Members who have been to the B.A.O.R know—that without tactical nuclear weapons the B.A.O.R., plus many thousands of dependants, would be overwhelmed if an attack proceeded further than a certain point. Therefore, military formations and units have to be trained. How are they being trained today? Hon. Members who know something about this subject know that the training manuals of the British Army include at least preparations for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. To whichever manoeuvre one goes one finds that that is part of the training tuition which commanders, high and low, are giving to their troops.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East tried to divide the problem into two compartments. First, strategic nuclear weapons—and I will not attempt to define them; we all understand the meaning of those words—and, secondly, tactical nuclear weapons. My hon. Friend dismissed, perhaps a little too easily, strategic nuclear weapons. We have no strategic nuclear weapons. The whole strategic force is in the hands of the

United States of America. The whole command is there, and it is only they, either in association with N.A.T.O. or alone, who can launch any strategic attack on the enemy.
When we come to tactical nuclear weapons, if they are part of our defence, what have we? Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) will know more about this. We have my hon. Friend as an old-established expert, and we have also my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), who is to compete in this sphere, and between the two of them we may be able to get somewhere near the truth. I am not saying that in any way unkindly to my hon. Friend. I hope that he will endorse what I say.
We have one regiment in the B.A.O.R. trained in the use of tactical nuclear weapons; one about to go out, and three more due to go out or be trained or formed at some time, as against seven regiments of so-called conventional artillery. I do not think that I am wrong in saying that as regards tactical nuclear weapons my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East, need not worry himself unduly because there is very little in the B.A.O.R. When he talks about getting agreement to withdraw forces with tactical nuclear weapons away from the Iron Curtain, I wonder how many are there at the present time. At any rate, everybody knows that the warheads are under lock and key, and that the keys are in the possession of the Americans.
What are conventional forces for? The Minister tried to tell us. I have not the slightest doubt that we need a large number of conventional forces—not necessarily in B.A.O.R., because the Germans will have their 12 divisions by the year after next, and will then have the largest contingent. Indeed, I suspect that with eight divisions they have a larger contingent than the British at present. It is true that their training may not be as good as British training but, as we all know to our cost, the Germans are very adept once they apply their minds to military matters.
I therefore agree with the Minister that we need conventional forces, but I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East who illustrated the role of those conventional forces, as he saw it


—in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell)—by speaking of their stopping a brawl in East Berlin. I would say that what we want there is some sort of gendarmerie sufficient to stop the brawl—the kind of occasion where the "policeman" is knocked on the head, as my hon. Friend put it. But there may be a greater danger than those incidents which he put forward as illustrations.
Berlin is a problem which Russia has warned the West she means to solve, in the same way that the Arab nations have told Israel that they mean to solve the Middle East problems. If Russia means what she says, although she may not inject Russian troops she may easily encourage East German troops, who are fairly well armed and trained, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley know, having been there recently and seen some of those troops. That seems to be the strategy of Russia all over the world. As new African territories are obtaining their freedom I believe that a good deal of Communist assistance is sometimes being given, as well as American incitement—or Belgian incitement—in regard to the Congo.
It is, therefore, clear that we need conventional forces. What sort of forces should they be? The Minister would probably agree with me that we cannot recruit a sufficient number of conventional forces to meet the world commitments which he says in his White Paper exist at present. Let us suppose that a situation similar to that which occurred in Cyprus developed somewhere. Let us remember how many British troops were immobilised in Cyprus in order to carry out fire brigade or police duties. A similar situation could arise elsewhere. What would happen to the strategic reserve then?
We have heard a lot about the strategic reserve since a War Minister from the benches opposite invented the term, but I now begin to wonder what it is and where it is, and how it can get from where it is to the far distant places where trouble might break out.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: What happens then?

Mr. Bellenger: I have one or two questions to ask the Minister. He talked about commando forces. He said that

we have four marine commandos and a strategic reserve in Great Britain. I should like to know a little more about it. Perhaps the Secretary of State for War will tell us when he introduces his Estimates. The Minister went on to say that the Kenya reserve is ready to move at 48 hours' notice by land or air.

Mr. Watkinson: I must make it clear that what I said was that a large proportion of all elements of the strategic reserve, whether in this country, in Kenya or in the Far East—where we have other elements—are available to move at 48 hours' notice by land or air. I was not referring to Kenya alone, but to the broad pattern.

Mr. Bellenger: I am sorry if I misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman. What he has said makes my point even stronger. If our strategic reserve all over the world is prepared to move at 48 hours' notice by land or air, how will they do it? Where is the air transport to lift them?
Not long ago the Minister of Aviation told us that a contract had been placed for the production of ten Short Britannic stategic freighters for the Royal Air Force. He said that they are due to go into service in 1964, and that they would be a valuable addition to Transport Command's strategic airlift resources. When the Minister of Defence talked glibly about the whole of our strategic reserve—in bits and pieces all over the world—being at 48 hours' notice to go to any part of the world, I wonder whether he can be sure of this. As we now know from the dispatch from General Keightley, in Suez, the Government did not do it then. It took us a long time to get our troops from Malta to the Delta.
The right hon. Gentleman may say that we have learned a lot since then. I should not be at all surprised if he or his staffs have, but I assert that the mobility of these strategic reserve forces is not as it should be. If the right hon. Gentleman disagrees, let him tell us where his airlift will come from in order to get these forces moving.

Mr. P. Williams: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that in the last five years Transport Command has been built up, for example, by the purchase of Britannics, and that for a substantial


emergency the civil airlines and the Corporations are always available to add to our transport forces?

Mr. Bellenger: I admit that there is some force in that argument but military forces usually have to depend on other military forces when it comes to anything like war.
As for the tactical airlift, namely, helicopters, I hope that the Minister will "come clean" and tell us what he has in B.A.O.R. When I was out there, some months ago, it had 24 helicopters, and they were all grounded. They could not lift any troops, or even the corps commander when he was badly smashed up. The British had to ring up the German command and say, "Can you lend us a helicopter to take our general to hospital?" The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) may know about that. It happened not long ago. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman's rather optimistic statement about moving the strategic reserve at 48 hours' notice holds good. I challenge him to prove that he has the means to do it. At any rate, not long ago, when we had a little trouble in Jordan, who moved the troops? We had to depend largely on the Americans.
In matters of defence, the House has never been told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, since I have been in it, when the first Defence White Paper was published in 1935. Ministers have hinted at many things, and have tried to tell us in their White Papers that all was well, but many of us know that if war comes, as was the case in 1939 we shall not be ready.
That brings me to a point that I have raised before, namely, the need to get at the facts. The Minister said that he would give us the facts, but I suggest to him, in no partisan spirit, that he has not given us them in his White Paper, or in his speech today. How can we get at the facts? Some hon. Members are well informed, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, but the majority are not. How are they to get the facts?
I should like to give the House some information which I have been able to pick up from Germany, which was a defeated nation after the last war. Ger-

many's parliamentary or democratic constitution was partly forced on her by the British, as well as certain other nations. It is ironical to think that we, the British, who had helped to defeat them and then imposed a constitution on them, should have given them something which we have not here—and we call ourselves the Mother of Parliaments. I could give a different term for it.
Under this German constitution, Western Germany has what is called a "Verteidigungsausschuss", which means defence committee. That defence committee consists mostly of back benchers and has passed on to it, secret information that is not given to the House—the Bundestag, as it is called. Confidential information, top secret and secret information are kept in the hands of the Government, as it should be, but a great deal of top secret information is given to members of the Bundestag who are members of the defence committee The members of that committee are selected by the Government party, the S.P.D.—the Socialist Opposition—and the F.D.P., which is roughly the German equivalent of the Liberal Party.
The committee is under great secrecy and if any hon. Member gets up in the Bundestag and demands information which, for security reasons, it is impossible for the answer to be given in open forum, he, if he is a member of the Verteidigungsausschuss can get it in that committee. Never once has any member of the committee in Germany disclosed in the Bundestag anything which could damage the security of the nation that he had learned in the defence committee. Quite often, when a Minister is questioned in the Bundestag, he refuses to give the information, but then says that he will disclose it to this committee.
Back benchers here who are jealous of their rights, and do not want any secret committees, will say, "How will one select those people, and why should some be in possession of this information and not others?" Look around these benches today and see how many hon. Members are sufficiently interested in defence to come and take part in the debate. I suggest that it would not be difficult to select those hon. Members and that they could get information there which would be of help to the Government as well as to the Opposition.


I believe—and I think that there are many other hon. Members of the same mind—that defence is of great priority and urgency and necessitates what I would call instructive, intelligent argument. Defence should not be a subject for the partisan warfare that occurs in some matters appertaining to home affairs. Western Germany is in a very exposed and vulnerable position. Dr. Adenauer's Government have an overwhelming majority and yet the Socialist Opposition, who are attempting this year, as they have been for some time—unfortunately, without success—to turn out Dr. Adenauer and his party, are prepared to nominate their representatives to that committee and co-operate with the Government in the defence of their country.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington, some time ago, supported the same sort of idea and I know that on both sides of the House there is a feeling that if the House is to get more vital information, without which hon. Members cannot form a correct or honest judgment, that is the way. I know that there is an argument against it. There is a fear that if the Opposition go to the Government and get secret information like this, our criticism of the Government will, to that extent, be reduced. It will not. The Select Committees of this House often get very secret information. During the war a Committee under the chairmanship of Sir John Wardlaw-Milne was especially set up to investigate matters which could not be investigated in the House of Commons for security reasons. Its chairman was allowed to report direct to the Prime Minister then. We had many arguments, particularly about tanks. Quite often this Committee put forward its views and recommendations to the Prime Minister and at other times we went into secret session—which is really an enlarged form of the committee for which I am appealing.
When the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) went out to the Middle East and straightened out our lamentable handling of affairs there, as he did—it is all history now—he was prodded by the House of Commons. We even went to an extent of moving a Motion of censure. No information was then given to the general public likely to endanger our security, but we back

bench Members knew what was going on because we had so many contacts with the forces—which we no longer have.
We were hopelessly outbattled in the Motion of censure against the Government—which was a Coalition Government and included members of the Opposition who had access to all the secrets in those days. Something was wrong in the Middle East. Not only was the conduct of the war wrong, but the weapons were wrong, especially the tanks.
I have been through very many disappointments in my political life and I suppose, speaking in the wilderness, as it were, that it will be a long time before this idea sinks into the minds of right hon. and hon. Members so that they will get together and urge on the Government of the day the setting up of such a Committee. Nevertheless, I tell them from long experience in the House, and from a close knowledge of military affairs, that we are fobbed off time and again. It is only when a Minister resigns, and becomes an ex-Minister, that the curtain is drawn aside a little and we are able to peep behind it and see his doubts and hesitations, which may easily have been there in those days before he was asked to resign from the Government.
It is because of the reasons that I put forward this afternoon, reinforced by the right hon. Member for Hall Green—a responsible back bencher, as we know, and one with considerable experience of these affairs—that I can support the Amendment proposed by the Opposition against the Government which, in itself, is a Motion of censure. I am not hiding the fact that there may be differences within my own party on defence—there are. However, I will say that the right hon. Member for Hall Green will easily get the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) on the question of selective conscription. He is on the record and I am not. He might even get my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, who can speak for himself, on some of these fundamental issues—

Mr. Wigg: I am certainly on record, and I will repeat it if my right hon. Friend wishes, but what my right hon. Friend must not do is to put into the mouth of my hon. Friend the Member


for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) words that he has not used. He is on record as having said that we cannot get rid of conscription unless we cut commitments. Therefore, it is quite wrong, and I do not know why my right hon. Friend does it—I am a personal friend of the hon. Member for Coventry, East and I hold my views and, unlike my right hon. Friend, I do not change them easily. My right hon. Friend must not, by association of ideas, try to smear.

Mr. Bellenger: My right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East is on record. We have only to look at the pages of the Daily Mirror, when he was writing his daily column in it, to find that he is on record for selective conscription, as is the right hon. Member for Hall Green. There is co-operation! I am not on record to that extent. I helped to put conscription through in 1947. I thought it a necessity in the aftermath of the war. I do not believe in conscription unless there is a terrific emergency. My whole life and thinking and my service in the Army has always been on the voluntary basis. I have done what I could to induce my sons to join voluntarily and one did and served for eight years. There is disagreement in my party about certain aspects of defence, and that is one of them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East, in a very intelligent and certainly intellectual speech, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington said, attempted to put the picture in a really convincing form. I will give one illustration of a point which was not so convincing to me. That was when he spoke of the use of conventional forces to stop a drunken East German knocking a West German over the head. If it is a question of defence, it is a question which affects hon. Members on both sides of the House equally. There may be differences, as I have attempted to show, between the two sides, but it is something of vital importance to the country. History has told us that all defence debates in the past were not able to produce the weapons or the troops when we were faced with war in 1939. All I am wondering is whether today we have a defence which is able and sufficient to quell what we might call the "brush fires" which are bound to break out all over the world. I doubt it.

7.2 p.m.

Sir John Maitland: The right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) has covered the subject so thoroughly that I find it very difficult to follow him. I hope that he will forgive me, because I want to refer to one or two things said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones). The Times, this morning, says that
the Government and the Opposition appear to enter today's defence debate in the House of Commons with fewer differences over policy than at any time during the past five years".
On the face of it, that would appear to be correct. Particularly, I notice that some hon. Members opposite seem to be in absolute agreement on this question, and that is all to the good because I am old-fashioned enough to think that a defence debate—and also a foreign affairs debate—is not really a matter for party division if that can possibly be avoided. We have a three-line Whip for tomorrow. I do not think that that is a good plan for a defence debate when the differences between the parties are not really so large.
What are the differences? Briefly, I suppose Her Majesty's Opposition want to abrogate their responsibility for the nuclear deterrent and any influence that the Government may be able to exert in its use. There, I think, is one of the serious things between the two parties in this debate. I do not want to add to controversy, but I want to talk about some of the things which The Times indicates we should talk about and to make suggestions to improve the state of the defences of our country.
It is, of course, a platitude to say that defence against war and protection of our economic existence have to go hand-in-hand. Too much emphasis on the one obviously jeopardises the very existence, or effectiveness, of the other. We have had ample opportunity recently to learn that Mr. Khrushchev's doctrine of peaceful co-existence is far from peaceful in the economic sense and will threaten the very economic existence of the West. That applies not only to this country, but to all the countries of the Western Alliance. Yet I should have thought that the method of defence expenditure of the western world is about as wasteful as anything could be.


By producing many different things in comparatively "penny numbers" we create great difficulties for ourselves in the economic sphere. We have almost the maximum expenditure for the minimum of effective defence.
I will remind my right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green of something that he already knows, that in Western European Union we have an organisation based mainly on defence which has all the Six and this country in it. That would provide a bridge and make an opportunity, if the Governments of all those countries required somewhere where, in defence matters, the Six and this country can meet. The Assembly of Western European Union recently put forward a criticism of the economics of the logistic system of the West and drew attention to the lack of standardisation, the lack of common spare parts and the multiplicity of various weapons.
What is happening today is the absolute negation of what I understand by the principle of interdependence. I was very pleased to hear my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence talk about interdependence. I thought that he made one of the best speeches from the Dispatch Box that I have ever heard him make. I was pleased to hear what he said about interdependence, but I am bound to say that it does not altogether fit in with what I have discovered in my contacts with these matters.
In his forthcoming talks with President Kennedy, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will place very high on his list of priorities for discussion with the President the vital needs to bring reality to the idea of interdependence. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green said—and I can see great force in his view—that when we are talking about interdependence we should consider Europe more than America. Yet it seems from my experiences that we should start by getting a really good business agreement with America over these matters. I can understand very well the pressure on the United States Government, with their generous foreign aid programme and high rate of unemployment, to allow the American arms industry practically to corner the supply of arms in the West. Perhaps that is an overstatement, but it is not very much of an

overstatement. A policy of that nature may well in the end be disastrous.
There are simply not enough scientists or technologists and technicians, even in America, to ensure that only the best weapons go into production. By the present system we are exploiting to the full the weakness and difficulties which any group of countries must have when they are competing against a vast single dictatorship. Yet, if the Western countries were to have agreed zones for production and research—this is something to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) referred in an admirable maiden speech—we might turn that natural disadvantage into an advantage.
If we did that, we should have a more flexible organisation, less liable to all the snags and delays which are always evident when there is a central directive of two big a business. If we were able to achieve agreed zones of production and research, I believe that the saving in economic effort would be immense.
I hope that I am wrong about this, but it seems to me that this country is getting the worst of both worlds by trying to adhere to a kind of unilateral interdependence. We cannot go on in that way. I believe that we must choose firmly whether we are to go on with interdependence, which is the obvious answer, or whether we shall have to look after our own arms industry for ourselves. If we did that, while it would be an admission of defeat, at least we should know where we stood, and that would be an asset. But I hope and pray that it may be possible to make arrangements, first, with the United States and then with our European allies, which would bring about something which is so obviously clear and so right that it must be right for all the people in that alliance.
I believe that if we can make an agreement, and be seen to have done so, with the United States it will be far easier to make agreements with the European countries. My right hon. Friend must not think—I am sure that he does not—that because the European countries of the Six are cojoined together, they do not also have difficulties and problems over the multiplicity of arms.
I should think that one result of the failure of interdependence is that today there is no mention in the White Paper of the Polaris nuclear submarine—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Yes, there is.

Sir J. Maitland: —which is practically the only method of exploiting the deterrent which has full credibility. I do not think that any country which has put its faith in the deterrent, and has nuclear warheads available, should be without the Polaris nuclear submarine. But the brutal truth is that we have no right to afford it. If the principle of interdependence worked properly, I believe that we might be able to afford it.
I wish briefly to comment on two other matters which are dealt with in the White Paper—

Mr. Paget: I did not follow what the hon. Gentleman meant by saying we have no right to afford the Polaris submarine.

Sir J. Maitland: I apologise to the hon. and learned Gentleman. Perhaps what I said was badly expressed.
As we all know, today we have to balance our expenditure on arms with the effect on our economy. The acquisition of the Polaris submarine would represent such a considerable outlay that we Should not contemplate it unless we can show that we are cutting back and exercising a policy of economic efficiency in relation to our present arms expenditure. Unless we can do that, I do not think we have any right to involve ourselves in expenditure on the Polaris submarine. That is What I meant.
The first of the other two matters to which I wish to refer is combined operations, which I consider important. I was delighted to see that progress is being made with the second commando carrier. In these ships the work of all three Services is combined, although not necessarily by the individual Services. I think that we should go further, and try deliberately to integrate the work of at least a part of all three Services; that they should train together all the time and not just for a particular operation.
Everyone is agreed that mobility is the key to the economic use of manpower. But we do not get mobility just

by having sufficient transport aircraft, transport ships, or landing craft, and weapons and men to be transported, although it would be very nice to have them. A great deal of special training is needed. I believe that it would be far more efficient—and in the long run far cheaper—to have as large a reserve as we can afford living and working together and fully trained in the science of mobility.
If such a reserve were impracticable without drawing on the establishment in Germany, I believe that to withdraw sufficient troops to form such a reserve would serve the interests of the West better than leaving those troops in Germany comparatively immobile. It seems to me vital to our general defence policy that we should be able to cope efficiently—and be known to be able to do so—with trouble in faraway places which might be promoted or exploited by the Soviets. Moreover, it seems to me an object for which the geography of the Commonwealth and our own tradition seem to be peculiarly suited.
Let us not forget that one of the advantages of such a policy of mobile groups working together would be that a reserve of this nature could form the nucleus of any military assistance which might be required by the United Nations to keep the peace. We believe sincerely in disarmament, but we shall always have to have some force to place at the disposal of the United Nations, and a system of reserves such as I have suggested would appear to place us in a position to supply that need.
Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green, I have always been in favour of bringing National Service to an end, in the interests of the Services themselves. In a country such as ours, where we enjoy independence and free ideas, it is better to have Regular Services without all the stigma of a forced call-up. I cannot think that my right hon. Friend has served in the Regular forces if he contemplates the return of National Service. It has always been my opinion, however, that while we should do away with conscription, we should inevitably have to operate in terms of manpower on the proverbial shoestring—whether, taking the Army as an example, the figure be 165,000 or 180,000.
Things would be difficult. At all times we should be living with a manpower problem and it would always be a source of anxiety. But we should change our thinking on the whole question of reserves. People forget that between the wars we used our reserves on at least one occasion of which I am aware, because I was there—in China, when we sent 10,000 men to the Shanghai Defence Force—and I believe that we have used them on other occasions. We should face the fact that it may be necessary to use our reserves. We should not be afraid of being prepared to use them.
Of course, that would and should be expensive. It ought to be if proper compensation is provided and every man is assured of a job to come back to when his duty is done. But it would prove less expensive than keeping a standing Army, Navy and Air Force of a greater size than we require; particularly, as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Minister, when the manpower of this country accounts for 52 per cent. of the total defence budget compared with the 10 per cent. devoted to our nuclear effort about which so much is said. We should try to educate public opinion to accept that fad.
I was very interested in what the Memorandum on Army Estimates said about the Emergency Reserve. I do not see a similar mention of reserves in either the Navy or the Royal Air Force pamphlets. I hope that before the debate ends the Government will tell us more about their attitude to reserves. For example, what is to happen after 1965? It is fairly plain sailing until then, but what is to happen afterwards? What is the Government's general attitude to this problem?
The Minister of Defence is doing a very good job under very difficult circumstances. He has the genius of not always appearing in the headlines. That is an excellent thing. It is sometimes a very good thing to be quiet. The only easy thing about defence policy is to criticise it.

7.20 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: The hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) carries me with him when he pleads that defence debates should be above party. I have always striven for that, because I

believe that the resources available to us are so limited and the objects we pursue of such enormous importance that we cannot afford to make this subject a plaything as between parties. However, when the hon. Member talked in the latter part of his speech about the use of reserve forces, it was obvious that he had not done his homework. Reserve forces depend not only upon the existence of men, but upon a mobilisation plan and war reserves, There is no mobilisation plan. There are certainly no war reserves.

Sir J. Maitland: It was for that very reason that I made the speech I did, asking the Minister to give a report to the House on that very subject when he winds up the debate. I do not see why I am in error for having done that.

Mr. Wigg: If the Government make a report on it and implement it, they will double the Estimates. An effective mobilisation plan, however, requires the expenditure of enormous sums of money. At present the Government are hard put to it to find the money even for first-line equipment. If it came to building up war reserves we should find ourselves in a most difficult situation.
Of course we should have a mobilisation plan. Of course we should have war reserves. Of course the Army should be able to expand, if only in a limited way to meet an emergency. At present it would be idle to call up men, because there is no equipment for those who are already serving. This is the crux of the Government's problem.
Looking at the manpower problem over the last eighteen months, the first significant move was made in November, 1959, when the then Minister of Labour came to the House and announced that he was not calling up 60,000 National Service men who were under an obligation to serve. That was because he could not afford it. Since that time there have been two announcements—one by the Secretary of State for Air and one by the Secretary of State for War—that the Government would release men before their two-year service was completed.
Why was that done? The answer is that the Government have not the money. The hon. Member for Horncastle gave the clue. Fifty-two per cent. of the existing


budget goes on pay. We have reached a point now when the Government are in a desperate dilemma. They want more men. They cannot get them, but even if they could get them they could not afford to pay them. This is the crux of our problem.
The first and most signficant feature about the White Paper is that it makes no mention at all of the five-year plan of which it is a part. I remember the enormous Press publicity, the talks on the radio and the build-ups in the Press which were the forerunners of the 1957 White Paper. This was the five-year plan which would not only save Britain but would save the West.
What was its first target? It was to save money. The 1957 Estimates were £1,420 million. This year they are £1,655 million. Since the present Administration have been in office, they have expended in ten years no less than £15,000 million. The uninitiated will at once ask what they have got for their money.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: Peace.

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Gentleman should not believe his own nonsense. If he believes that the result of this Government's policy has been to keep peace, I need mention only one word to him—Suez.

Mr. Kershaw: What about Korea?

Mr. Wigg: That was not brought about by the Government. That was a United Nations operation and was brought about because there was an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Conservative Government have not a record of peace. They landed us in the biggest humiliation and national defeat since the Dutch sailed up the Medway three hundred years ago. It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) said, that what has happened about the hydrogen bomb is in many ways a reaction of the difficulties we found ourselves in at Suez. It was a reaction from Suez, and the first objective was to save money.

Mr. Brian Harrison: The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is not quite fair when he talks about saving money. Paragraph 72 of the 1957 Defence White Paper says:
It should not however be expected that it will show a decline in any way comparable

with that in the manpower strength of the forces.

Mr. Wigg: I am only dealing with the cash, first. I must start at some point. I could have gone back even further, namely, to the speech of the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, because that was the starting point of it. I always try to follow the previous speaker, and I am making the point that the Government's five-year plan has not saved money.
Another point I wish to make at the opening of my speech is to draw attention to the fact that we are now at the end of the five-year plan which is now forgotten but which only two years ago, produced a White Paper entitled "Progress of the Five-Year plan". Since that time the Government have become much more modest. The White Paper is this year, like the 1960 one, entitled "Report on Defence". One almost has the impression, both from the White Paper and from the speech of the Minister of Defence, that 'the right hon. Gentleman wants to creep away from it very quietly—the least said about the past the better.
I come on to the core of my argument when I begin to make a detailed analysis of what we have achieved in the last five years and compare what is in this White Paper with what was in the 1957 White Paper. We were to have an atomic streamlined force. Early on we were not told the name, but subsequently it came to be called Blue Streak. A variety of reasons have been given for the abandonment of Blue Streak—holes in the ground, mobility requirement, and so on. My interpretation is nothing so romantic as that. It boils down to the one word "cash".
Paragraph 54 of the Civil Appropriation Accounts, Class VI, Vote 10, which appears on page xix, says:
Following the completion in 1959 of a preliminary study the Ministry of Supply, with Treasury authority, embarked upon the development of…
what afterwards came to be called Blue Streak. A little further on in the paragraph this passage appears:
The Ministry tentatively estimated that the whole project would require expenditure of £50 million over a period of ten years to include extramural development costs…
Paragraph 55 contains this passage:
In October 1957 the Treasury were informed that it was then estimated that the total


cost of development including the whole test firing programme would amount to between £160 million and £200 million …
The House should also know this. Early in 1960—this is the time when the last White Paper was published, and when the right hon. Gentleman was defending Blue Streak in this Chamber—it is here recorded that the Estimate had risen to between £280 million and £310 million and that the total cost of the weapon project would be between £500 million and £600 million. I wish that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Defence was here, because we could then at least watch his face.
That makes nonsense of all the excuses he then gave. We can now say with absolute certainty that a year ago he did not tell the House of Commons the truth. He knew then that Blue Streak was a dead duck. It might even be—and I have often suspected it—that the Prime Minister, who is a smart operator, indeed, if ever there was one, held the information back from 29th February to 13th April because he wanted the row to go on in the Labour Party.
We are asked by the other side not to play politics. I can assure hon. Gentlemen that I have never tried to do that, but if I am wrong in my supposition I should like to hear the explanation from the Minister, because he knew a year ago that the cost of Blue Streak would be so great that, irrespective of its technical triumph, whatever that might be, in terms of cost we could not afford to go on.
What was another principle on which the 1957 White Paper depended? It was the principle of mobility. We have heard this again today: atomic streamlined forces, limited in character, raised by voluntary recruitment, hard-hitting, well-equipped—like a fire brigade, going there, coming back here, on to the fire station, then off it goes again. Five years have gone by. One of the standards I bring to bear is the kind of goods the Government put in the shop window. Even if the shop window is well arranged but I can see that the principal piece is marked "dummy" I begin to doubt the stocks on the shelf.
When one looks at paragraph 43 of the Memorandum issued by the Secretary of State for Air it would appear that the Government have put two dummies in the same shop window. Paragraph 43 refers to an operation called "Star-

light"—and this, of course, is put in to convince my hon. Friend and other hon. Gentlemen, who have to rely on it for their information.
This operation was intended to test mobility, and Transport Command took part in it. "Starlight" was held in the spring of 1960 and involved the movement of a brigade group to North Africa—4,800 troops, nearly 300 vehicles, and 175 tons of equipment. I do not know whether hon. Members are impressed. I know that it nearly brought tears to my eyes because, at the very same time, there was an exercise in the United States to test their logistic capacity—

Mr. Bellenger: Was that with civil aircraft?

Mr. Wigg: No, that was Transport Command.
As I was saying, there was an operation in the United States called "Puerto Pine/Big Slam." The United States lifted 21,000 troops and 11,000 tons of equipment—and that operation was subject to the most biting criticism. No doubt a little of the criticism was inspired. No doubt certain firms like Lockheed had a hand in the criticism, because that was one way to step up orders for transport aircraft. Nevertheless, it was pointed out that no fuel was included in that 11,000 tons. The point was made that the aircraft were flying twelve hours a day, for seven days a week for two weeks, which was pushing them to the very limit.
Every competent staff officer knows, on the basis of exercises already carried out, that the basis of the planning of an airlift is about 1 ton per man. And the criticism in the United States was aroused because the lift was only about half what it should be. But what about "Starlight", with its 4,800 troops and 175 tons?
The previous year we had another operation—and I do not deprecate such operations; they are very useful, if only to give the staff exercise—in which the artillery was not carried, because if it had been they could not have taken the ammunition. What sort of game is this? I do not deplore these exercises. Indeed, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will have many more of them. What I do deplore is putting this in the forefront of the Memorandum of the


Secretary of State for Air as though it were some gigantic achievement, whereas it was the most deplorable thing that could be imagined.
I have dealt with cash; I have dealt with mobility. We were next told that we were to get rid of conscription. I had not intended to say very much on this subject, but the debate has developed in a certain way and the right hon. Gentleman has challenged me. I shall not run away from that challenge. What is the history of conscription? The history is that in the 1957 White Paper the Government stated that they were to reduce the Forces to 375,000. No breakdown was given in 1957 of the division between the three Forces. In 1958 we got the division: 165,000 for the Army, 135,000 for the Air Force and 88,000 for the Navy—a total of 388,000
Two years later, recruiting happened to get a little better, and the Secretary of State for War announced a step-up of 15,000, making a total of 403,000. The extra 15,000 were to go to the Army, 11,000 being required in the strategical reserve because Cyprus had shown that the Army could not manage with battalions of 635 and needed about 800. Recruiting later got back to normality. The point I want to make in regard to that is something that I would almost call "Wigg's Law". It is as simple as this.
There are in the community only a given number of men who like service in the Armed Forces of the Crown—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: And getting less.

Mr. Wigg: That may well be. I do not believe that it is, but that depends on one's point of view—

Mr. Hughes: It is common sense.

Mr. Wigg: It may be so. My point is that there is only a given number, and if we increase the pay we borrow from the future. Funnily enough, I believe that if we increased the danger it might increase recruiting. The one thing that would pull the right hon. Gentleman's chestnuts out of the fire would be active operations overseas—that would push the recruiting figures up. Basically, recruiting is like a piece of elastic; one pulls it, and it contracts again when released. I am sure that the Minister is taking heart

from the success of his films. I would warn him that the success may be here, but we are borrowing from the future. The chaps who step up today will not join tomorrow. All the recruiting curves show the same pattern—up and down, up and down.
I, therefore, took leave to doubt whether the success of 1958 would be achieved. However, when the Government announced their decision to abolish conscription, they gave the House of Commons and the country the following specific undertaking, in paragraph 48 of the 1957 White Paper:
It must nevertheless be understood that, if voluntary recruiting fails to produce the numbers required, the country will have to face the need for some limited form of compulsory service to bridge the gap.
That was quite a specific undertaking.
It was repeated on 14th November, 1960. I then put down Questions to the Prime Minister, and they were transferred to the Home Secretary. I asked:
Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the Government expect to get a minimum of 165,000 by the date they chose, namely, 1st January, 1963? Do they expect to do so or not?
The right hon. Gentleman replied:
I would say that the answer to that is quite justifiably 'yes, Sir'.
Subsequently in the course of the discussion the right hon. Gentleman was also asked, again specifically, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) whether the Government's pledge in paragraph 48 still stood—that is to say, if they did not get 165,000 men by 1st January, 1963 whether they were pledged to introduce some limited form of National Service? The right hon. Gentleman said:
Certainly the pledge in paragraph 48 of the 1957 White Paper holds good."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th November, 1960; Vol. 630, c. 32 and 33.]
There are the two statements—first, that they are going to get the number and, secondly, that if they do not, they are going to do what they said they would do in the 1957 White Paper. I think that before the end of this debate we need some explanation from the Government Front Bench. This afternoon the Minister of Defence said specifically that they did not expect to get 165,000 until the early days of 1963. In other words, it was hoped to get them shortly


after the date which they originally set. That is clear. But if the Government are going to break their pledge, if they feel that the margin is so narrow that they do not need to do anything about it, they ought to tell the House and should not try to get away with it.
I want to draw attention to another remarkable thing. The strip cartoons in the Defence White Paper give a manpower target of 165,000 to 180,000. This afternoon the Minister of Defence repeated that 180,000 was the target. I should like to draw attention to a speech that was made by the then Minister of Aviation, now Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, to the Press Gallery on 29th June, 1960. He obviously had in mind the breakdown of the Government's defence policy. He said:
It is said that the Government's defence policy is in ruins because we shan't get an army of 180,000 men. We may not get 180,000 men, but we have never said that we needed 180,000.
It seems to me that the right hand knoweth not what the left hand doeth.
The present Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations must have forgotten all the arguments that had taken place in the Ministry of Defence and on the Floor of the House. On 28th July, 1958, Lord Head came to the House and challenged the Minister of Defence on the issue that 165,000, which the Government had decided as a target, bore no relation whatever to any order of battle. It was a number that they had thought of and which they hoped they would be able to recruit. In the circumstances, this is playing fast and loose with a most serious subject.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) wants to know where I stand. There are in Berlin 3 infantry battalions and in the rest of Germany 17 infantry battalions—a total of 20. The total number after reorganisation and run-down, which was referred to by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) in his able speech, was 49 battalions of infantry, 8 battalions of Guards and 3 battalions of the Paratroop Regiment—a total of 60. Of those, 20 are earmarked for Germany and 4 are on public duties in London. That leaves 36 battalions to perform duties which before the war were done by 120 battalions plus the Indian Army.

It is not my place to argue the order of battle, but if that order of battle stands and if any Government, whether Conservative or Labour, were to do their duty and refrain from asking the Army to carry a burden which really rests on the shoulders of the Administration of the day, I would vote for that Government. If it were a Conservative Government I would vote for it, even if it meant my expulsion from the Labour Party. That is as clear as I can spell it out, and I ask hon. Members opposite to spell out their intentions as clearly as I have spelt out mine.
My reason for saying that is that I have been at the receiving end. I was in Chanak, Palestine and Iraq. I know what it is like to be at the receiving end. I shall never be party to playing politics with soldiers' lives, and if I have to leave politics this is as good a reason as any for doing so. I hope I have made myself absolutely clear.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: My hon. Friend is arguing for some kind of selective conscription. Cain he tell us whom he would select? Would he select miners, or agricultural workers or people who are badly needed in the export trade?

Mr. Wigg: The question how it is done is highly technical. It could be done on some basis such as is followed in the United States. I would remind hon. Members opposite that every major country in N.A.T.O. has got some form of military service. Britain is the only country which thinks that it can get away with it, and yet this is a country with world-wide commitments. That would give a rough conception of the sort of people that we want. I do not want to make too heavy weather of this but I was challenged and I have given my reply.

Mr. Hughes: I am sorry to interrupt again, but this is important. My hon. Friend has recommended selective conscription by ballot. How does he know that he would get the right kind of soldier?

Mr. Wigg: I think the laws of probability are that in the long run we would get a cross-section by this means. But I think my hon. Friend is being a little unfair. I have given my honest views and I have drawn attention to what appears to be a successful method which is followed in the United States. It would


seem to me that this is one way of doing it. The standard of living of us all is maintained by the troops in Malaya, Hong Kong, Africa and in the Persian Gulf. It is not right to let those battalions rot there under establishment. I am not Minister of Labour, but if hon. Members would care to use their votes and put me in a position of authority that would be a different matter.

Mr. Charles Curran: I am following the hon. Member with interest. Could he give us a few of his own estimates? What, in his view, is the maximum number that we should get by the voluntary method, taking one year with another? What does he regard as the number that we ought to add to the normal intake?

Mr. Wigg: That is a perfectly fair question. My guess is that the Secretary of State for War is going to be about 5,000 short.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Profumo): indicated dissent.

Mr. Wigg: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I hope that I am wrong. I think that the number will be about 160,000 on 1st January, 1963. In my view, with the order of battle that we have, to provide a perfectly safe margin we need 200,000, as was originally recommended. It could perhaps be cut down to 182,000, but every 1,000 that we cut down below 200,000 is taking an unjustifiable risk. We are indulging in a gamble.
It is common knowledge that there are differences in our party. Do not let us disguise it. There are honest differences. But I do not have to read my speeches with a sense of shame. A year ago I said that the Government's policy was not vacillating or confusing; it was unutterably wrong. One of my hon. Friends demanded that I should be expelled from the party. When the vote was taken the result was 43 to 1, and my vote was right. I am happy to say that even the Front Bench are now adopting the policy that I advocated. I have no cause for complaint. Blue Streak has gone. Let us see where this gets us. Of course we have to pretend that we have a nuclear deterrent. We have to say this because there was a great big lump missing out

of the 1957 policy if the independent nuclear deterrent has gone. Therefore, we had to put our money on Blue Streak, long after it was perfectly clear that the policy had collapsed, because not to do so was to admit on the eve of the General Election that our defence policy had in fact collapsed.
In this White Paper the nonsense is still perpetuated. We talk about the V-bomber force, and its free falling-bombs. We are not children; we are all grown up. We have about 200 VI bombers. The first V2 bombers, the Vulcans, have just come into squadron service with No. 83 squadron. These aircraft are subsonic. Does anyone suggest that any of these V-bombers will have any chance at all against the Mig 19 except on the "deck"? Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House how much flying practice they can get on the contours—about half an hour before they begin to rattle themselves to bits.
The Russians and the Americans both know that the V-bomber force has very little use in Germany. When Blue Steel and Skybolt come along they have some use, but if we put the whole lot into a hat it would not constitute 3 per cent. of the total American deterrent. Therefore, to base our policy on the reasons given this afternoon, that this carries any influence with the Americans, is unmitigated nonsense.
It is to the great credit of some hon. Members on this side of the House that they regard this talk about megatons and millions of deaths as repugnant and distasteful. They shudder at the thought. That kind of approach to our defence problem has in times of emergency been a great source of strength to this country. It was in 1940. Some hon. Members see only the underlying pacifist view which is expressed inside the Labour Party and see it as a source of weakness. The danger is, when pacifically-minded men get round to talking about weakness, that—and I say this very kindly—many of them do not know the difference between a tin of bully beef and a roll of barbed wire, yet they talk about the most abstract subjects, about the most technical of all weapons, which defy the understanding, even of the experts. We had obstruse arguments about the use of atomic tactical weapons in Germany in 1957. I listened to the


admirable speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East which was absolutely first-class. There was only one mistake in it, and that was when he repeated the debate about the situation in Berlin in 1958. The troops in Berlin are outside N.A.T.O. They have not got a tactical atomic weapon. They have not got even a support weapon. They are outside N.A.T.O.
This was one of the heresies advanced in 1958, from our Front Bench, that we could use atomic tactical weapons in support of the troops in Berlin. That was nonsense. I said so then and I have never withdrawn it, in spite of again being threatened with expulsion from the Labour Party for saying it. I am, however, still speaking from these benches.
Today, we have the same thing. There is a shortage of manpower in B.A.O.R. and to fill the gap there are discussions about the use of atomic tactical missiles. We have not got any. What atomic tactical missiles are there under British control in Germany at the present time? There is the 47th Guided Weapons Regiment. There are three Royal Artillery regiments armed with Honest Johns, and with 8 in. howitzers, all of which are American and under American control. Our independent atomic potential inside the Army of the Rhine does not in fact exist at all. I will go further. I say that there is not a kiloton weapon in Germany, not even in the Air Force, that does not belong to the Americans and that is not under American control. The high falutin' arguments that are put forward when we are discussing whether we should use atomic weapons in Germany are entirely academic in character.
The truth is that three or four years ago at the N.A.T.O. meeting there was a discussion on MC 70. It was decided that all N.A.T.O. countries should undertake training in atomic weapons, and we played our part, as did Germany and other members of N.A.T.O. Now a trickle of American weapons has in fact come forward, but they give us no atomic potential of our own in Germany. As long ago as 1958, ideas were discussed based upon weapons like Davy Crockett—a fractional kiloton weapon—but these weapons existed only in the imagination of those who, for purely political reasons, introduced them to balance their political arguments.
Once again, the truth is related to the shortage of money. Our manpower policy has made us welsh on our N.A.T.O. commitment which was originally four divisions. The four divisions then became 77,000 men. The 77,000 became 64,000, the 64,000 became 55,000 and the 55,000 was cut down to 45,000. That was too much for our N.A.T.O. partners and the Government could not get away with it, so they paid lip-service to the 55,000 but they have not kept 55,000 in B.A.O.R. They say that we are organised on a seven brigade group basis, but two of those brigades for all practical purposes do not exist, and many of the units in the other five brigades are under establishment. They are organised, as is the whole of our defence effort, not on the basis of any military requirement but on how it fits in to the size of the bill.
The Foreign Secretary goes to N.A.T.O. and is forced to argue in favour of short wars because we cannot fight long ones. Indeed, if hon. Members would spend a little time in studying the plans of the major N.A.T.O. countries, they would see that the fantastic thing which strikes one is that they are all organised to fight different wars. Logistically and strategically the fact is that each country—all democracies—is approaching its defence problem in terms of what is financially and politically acceptable in the country of origin. One thing which we cannot do is to organise and build up farces in that way. If we do we shall ultimately meet with disaster.
I have been trying to say this for the last fifteen years. If we go on refusing to accept the lessons of the last war and refusing to face up to the fact that we are no longer a great Power in any real sense, then we shall ultimately face the humiliating disaster of which Suez was an example. I do not think that we can be an atomic Power. It is completely and utterly beyond our capacity. I do believe that we can make a real, honest and worth-while contribution to N.A.T.O. from a military point of view. I believe that we can discharge our Commonwealth obligations.
What I am sure about is that if we in the House of Commons and in Britain do not discharge our Commonwealth obligations, no one will do it for us. It is absolutely certain that, in the state of opinion existing in France, Germany and the United States, they will not


underwrite us if we get into difficulties anywhere east of Gibraltar. It will have to be done by us, and no one should imagine that by slashing our commitments we shall escape trouble. I believe that the decision has already been taken, for instance, to take three major units out of Singapore. I do not believe that ignoring our obligations in Singapore lessens the likelihood of trouble. I believe that it steps it up. The word goes round. We have only to give a good rattle at the old tin can and out we go. In this game, once people know that we are going, the next minute we are half-way out.
Hon. Members both on this side of the House and on that must wake up before it is too late and see what the consequences are likely to be, not only in military terms but in economic terms, if we default on our obligations to both N.A.T.O. and the Commonwealth.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has made an interesting speech which the House has followed with great interest. I should like clarification from him on one or two points. First, speaking about the atomic capability of our V-bomber force, the hon. Gentleman said that judgment in these atomic matters was very difficult to come to because one had to be a great expert and even then one could not be sure of being right. If that is so, how can the hon. Member be so sure that our atomic force is worth nothing?

Mr. Wigg: I do not rely upon myself. I have done what the Government do. I have sought the best advice I can get. I am content to rely upon the advice that the V-bomber force, in the hours of light, will have very limited use.

Mr. Kershaw: That is very much a matter of opinion which it is difficult to check on account of the security barrier surrounding operations.
When referring to cash, the hon. Member said that the Government cannot afford to engage too many troops because they could not pay and, in any case, the cost is rising. I hesitate to say this to the hon. Member, but I do not think that he can have done his homework thoroughly. Perhaps he got too bored with the White Paper before he reached page 9.

On page 9, there are little diagrams to show that, in relation to constant prices, expenditure on defence has been falling steadily since 1954.
It is shown, too, that, expressed as a percentage of the gross national product, the amount spent this year is very slightly less than the amount in 1949, less than in 1950, and substantially less than in 1951. Also, it is less than it has been in other years ever since 1952. It appears, therefore, that defence expenditure, as a percentage of the gross national product, has fallen.
The hon. Member will see also that, as a percentage of total central Government expenditure, expenditure this year is lower than it has been in any year since 1953, and it is lower than it was in 1951 when the Labour Government left office.

Mr. Wigg: I quite agree that the tendency of the demand of defence upon the gross national product has been first to level out and then to fall, for the Government have other commitments to meet besides defence. Nor must we forget that we have a high cost, low investment economy.
If we read earlier White Papers, we see that one of the arguments for financial saving was the demand made by defence on the metal-using industries. The tendency now has been towards a shift back in the demand on these industries. But, of course, much of this is a matter of opinion. If the hon. Member is not satisfied, he should look at the manpower figures, and he will see that the decline overall is a very real one. If he does not accept my explanation, he must find one more acceptable to himself.

Mr. Kershaw: I do not think that this is so much a matter of opinion as a matter of fact. We can see the percentage being spent, and I think that the hon. Member should have rounded off his remarks about cash by dealing with the percentage figures in the White Paper.
Lastly, I have a question about selective service, in which the hon. Member and several of my hon. Friends believe. I wonder how many people it would take to train the numbers of people called up. Would it be as high as 40,000 men needed in our training establishment? To what extent should we be


able to gain full efficiency from selective service? There is also the matter of morale, which I have no doubt the hon. Member has in mind, among the Regular forces if selective service is introduced.

Mr. Wigg: This is really a matter of opinion. Morale is a most ephemeral matter. It can change from hour to hour, almost from minute to minute. As regards training, I should not imagine that the number required would be as high as 40,000. We should not want that number of training establishments. We have training establishments for the Regulars, and the others could go in with them.

Mr. Kershaw: Perhaps the Minister can resolve the difficulty. It is important. I should like to know exactly what could be gained from selective service and what the requirements would be.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: When my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) spoke about selective service, I put to him a question which he simply cannot answer. We are told that we need soldiers for a highly mechanised war involving extremely complicated atomic weapons. How shall we get those by ballot?

Mr. Kershaw: My word—I find myself, on a military matter, in agreement with the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes)! I should like to put that on record. I agree that it is a difficult problem and I do not myself consider that selective service is the answer. In my view, there are two answers, either voluntary service or total conscription. That is the choice before the country.
In my speech, I wish to discuss the position of N.A.T.O. It is a paradox that, although N.A.T.O. has been, I would say, 100 per cent. successful in its effects since it was established, everyone seems to combine in saying that it is in urgent need of reform. Apparently, we do not question nearly so much our policy in C.E.N.T.O. or in S.E.A.T.O. or our policy of world-wide bases, but N.A.T.O., the one organisation where our policy has been so successful, we all agree must have something done about it. Before suggesting what should be done, if anything, I wish to pay my tribute to the effect it has had and record the fact that since its estab-

lishment communism has not advanced by a single metre in Europe.
Of course, the nuclear balance which we have now attained brings its problems. How should we, in this new situation, organise our nuclear weapons which, if we use them, will, of course, destroy Europe? In the first place, I think that it would be helpful if we stopped talking about the nuclear weapon as the deterrent. In my view, we ought to speak of all the forces we possess as the deterrent. Every man in uniform is part of the deterrent. The nuclear weapon alone is not what a potential enemy has to bear in mind when calculating the chances of success. My thinking, and the thinking of the Soviet Union, too, I imagine, goes along these lines. In a conventional war Russia wins. In a purely nuclear war Russia wins, because she bluffs us out of it and she knows that we will not use the nuclear weapon.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Why go to war?

Mr. Kershaw: In a mixed conventional and nuclear war, with the various forces available, Russia must hesitate.
I question whether it is possible for us to fight a purely conventional war in Europe. It is possible for us to conduct frontier operations, very small stuff so to speak, perhaps little larger than a brigade, but anything that needs to be coped with by something larger than the brigade is surely an outbreak of such seriousness that we should have to employ, or think of employing, all the weapons at our command.
N.A.T.O. is perfectly capable of fighting something slightly more than a frontier episode at the moment, but I very much doubt that it is possible to imagine a serious attack being held by conventional forces. My reasons are basically three. First, what do our troops in Europe need a nuclear force for? They need it not to be used on the battlefield immediately round them, but for interdiction in order to prevent the enemy falling upon them from a distance.
Secondly, I believe that we cannot conduct a war in Western Europe without nuclear weapons because we must envisage the possibility of their being used and, therefore, we must deploy ourselves in such a way that we shall not be annihilated if they are used. That


means that we cannot ourselves forgo their use, because we cannot fill the very large gaps between our forces which it is necessary to do if we are deployed for nuclear war.
The possibility is urged by some that the weapons would not be used for the reasons that gas was not used in the last war, but I cannot think that any great nation would accept defeat or even forgo victory without using the most powerful weapon at its command. That is one reason why I believe that those who believe in the destruction of existing stocks of bombs are wrong. I do not think that it would mean very much. In the last resort the "know-how" would exist and in the face of defeat the bombs would be resurrected and used.
The nuclear weapon is technically essential to our troops in Europe and it is necessary for it to be integrated with the large forces we have there. It is, therefore, difficult to imagine how we can avoid having that type of force with nuclear weapons integrated in it. There is a great deal of talk about the strategic and the tactical. It is not very helpful to make this distinction between the two. Our targets are interdiction targets. We should not be trying to destroy the battlefield. We should not be trying to destroy Western Europe, but trying to hit airfields and supply and communication centres which lie far away. Therefore, we must have the nuclear weapon in Western Europe.
The next question that arises is whether we must have our own. I add, in passing, that I see absolutely no advantage whatever in throwing away the nuclear weapon which we already have. I do not see how that will carry the matter forward. But must we continue to support a nuclear weapon which costs 10 per cent.—which is a substantial proportion—of our defence expenditure, a cost which we must envisage will rise because we imagine that these weapons will become increasingly expensive?
We thus come to the question of interdependence. We have recently been discussing the possibility that N.A.T.O. in some way should share the control and presumably, therefore, the production and the cost of a nuclear weapon. But I wonder whether this is really much

of an answer. Would it increase our forces? The answer is "No", because nuclear forces are already adequate for the purpose and are supplied only by the United States and ourselves. Would it increase our preparedness? I doubt it very much. Indeed, it might have the opposite effect.
Would it stop the spread of nuclear weapons? That might be a great gain. I very much doubt whether France would stop the course which she has mapped out for herself. It is possible that Germany would be in a different posture and frame of mind and might go for her own nuclear weapon if she were denied, in the long run, weapons of N.A.T.O. character, but I do not believe that that will be so. N.A.T.O. has its possibilities at the moment. I do not agree that we would stop the spread of nuclear weapons by giving N.A.T.O. greater control of existing ones. Would it make our allies feel any safer? On the contrary, they would have reason to feel less safe, because they would envisage the possibility of the United States withdrawing across the Atlantic and being prepared to leave Europe in certain circumstances.
I do not think that N.A.T.O. control of nuclear weapons carries us much further. Not that the problem of political control is fundamental. The much more difficult question that faces us is the problem of cost and the problem of mutual confidence between allies. It must be quite incontrovertible that the pooling of resources is the way in which both these problems can be met. Cost would be more widely shared and a feeling of mutual confidence engendered which would be indeed valuable.
All our allies can produce high-class modern weapons, but we cannot all have training facilities in our own countries; but it would obviously be a waste of money to do all this individually. The chief difficulty is that the United States armament industry can afford to supply this hardware at a much lower price to our allies than that at which we can produce them or our allies themselves produce them.
There is a possibility of the political contribution being more forceful within N.A.T.O. That might be valuable. The N.A.T.O. Council has hardly any personality of its own. It is just a place where ambassadors take their instructions


from individual Governments. More might be made of N.A.T.O. in that respect and the next Secretary-General might be able to organise the Council in a way gnat would give greater political cohesion to the alliance.
I conclude that at the moment there is nothing to be done which we are not doing in our military policy. Our control methods for the nuclear weapon are satisfactory. I believe that in the long run questions of cost and of mutual confidence demand that a great deal of interdependence should be achieved, and it may be that we should have to sacrifice a great deal in that cause ourselves.
There is a further question which we all ought to ask. In envisaging this interdependence, we must also have in mind what type of weapon we shall have in future, of the nuclear and expensive sort. It must be a second-strike weapon of the Polaris type carried in a submarine, or some sort of poor man's Polaris carried in a different kind of ship.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The hon. Member's "poor man's Polaris" is a curious phrase. Does he argue that this country can go in for Polaris submarines at £50 million a time?

Mr. Kershaw: No, I was hinting by that phrase that we cannot go in for them, but I cannot see any technical reason why we should not utilise merchant ships or some moveable vehicles on land for this purpose. I am just asking the question. I do not think that the House can make up its mind firmly until it knows what this second-strike weapon will cost. Is it possible for us to go it alone? I do not think we have been told. The information is not available. I do not expect the House to be told today or tomorrow whether we could or could not afford these weapons. There are considerations which inhibit a Government spokesman from saying that, but can we go alone on this matter or is it altogether out of consideration? In order to have this weapon is it necessary to cancel our present strategic air forces?
If we can have this second-strike Polaris-type weapon deployed all over the world, perhaps solely at sea, there is another thought which springs to

mind. When one reflects on our history one recalls that at one time we were the blue-water school of strategy. If we return to the Atlantic Ocean and there we have our ultimate weapon, it is worth considering whether we shall also he in a position to have large numbers of troops dedicated to a continental war. We have never been in that position before without ruining the country in the long run.
If we have this weapon secure against any possible surprise to be launched against us, are we, at the same time, to maintain the large expensive Army on the Continent? I am a wholehearted and 100 per cent. backer of N.A.T.O., but these divisions of tasks and cost and responsibility can be made. I believe that these things are for consideration and that we ought to start to think whether that possibility can come in the future.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: The Minister of Defence told us today that his purpose in the White Paper was to break the sequence of peace as an interval between wars. I am certain that all of us in the House are animated by exactly the same motive. But there is a difference in method, and it is when we come to the method that I part company with him, because there is nothing in the White Paper to show that the right hon. Gentleman has a single original thought to contribute towards the end for which he expresses a desire.
The right hon. Gentleman has already found out, as I am sure millions before him have done, that one cannot obtain peace by preparing for war; and yet that is exactly what the right hon. Gentleman is doing at the moment. All through history that fact has been proved. The attempt has failed a thousand times. If failure comes this time, it will be different from all others because it will mean obliteration. We are faced with that terrible fact because man's capacity to construct new weapons has completely outrut his ability to control them, and in achieving the nuclear weapon he has not merely achieved a more powerful type of weapon but has got one which is completely novel in human history.
In the wars of old, which I am sure were in the right hon. Gentleman's mind, man fought against man. Now man, with


his new weapon, will fight not only against those who are alive but against those who have still to be born. He will fight against the very seeds of life itself. It is because of these things that so many people today are opposing this method of waging war and trying to get this country to realise that it is a method which mankind simply cannot tolerate. As is evident now, that view is gaining support more and more rapidly.
I realise that one of the things that animates the right hon. Gentleman in his White Paper is what he himself says, that the existence of immense military power in the Soviet bloc must be of deep concern to the West. But I am sure he will agree that as Euclid used to tell us, the converse is also true and that the existence of immense military power in the West must be of deep concern to the Soviet bloc. If I may take as an example the existence of that power and the attempt to expand it, I should like to quote what was said by President Kennedy of the United States in his recent speech when he dealt with the state of the Union. He said:
I have directed prompt action to increase our airlift capacity. Obtaining additional air transport mobility—and obtaining it now—will better assure the ability of our conventional forces to respond, with discrimination and speed, to any problem at any spot on the globe at any moment's notice.
There is a comprehensive desire embodied in a comprehensive plan covering the entire world. In the same message the President of the United States went on to say:
Only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.
Once the President of the United States enunciates that as his objective, one is bound to realise that there will be a response from Khrushchev in the same terms. So the arms race is on; and never yet in the history of the world, to which the right hon. Gentleman very briefly referred, has the arms race ended in anything else but war. Now we are faced with the fact in considering this problem from that point of view that if we are engaged in an arms race of the magnitude which has been expressed by both of the chief contestants, then it is a race in which this nation of ours can play no effective part.
When we are faced with problems of that nature we turn to the militarist to see how he expresses his plan to meet such a state of affairs. The Minister quoted paragraph 8 of the White Paper, in which he said:
The primary purpose of our defence policy is, therefore, that it should protect us, our allies and our friends against the whole spectrum of possible aggression and military threats …
That is the important part of paragraph 8. It is a tremendously widespread aim. But, having read paragraph 8 and progressed to paragraph 31, one reaches the conclusion that, whoever wrote paragraph 8, someone else wrote paragraph 31.
Paragraph 31 seems to express a more cautionary objective—
how to keep our place, to preserve a proper balance in our effort, and how to avoid the risk of deploying our limited resources of manpower and money over too wide a field.
That has been a subject of much study.
There appears to be an astounding contradiction between the two paragraphs. In paragraph 8, the Minister is to roam the world in warlike mood—or at least in defensive mood—in order to protect us. In paragraph 31, he has come to a different conclusion and feels that he must deploy our limited resources much more carefully than he was prepared to do in paragraph 8.
In paragraph 17, which he also quoted, the right hon. Gentleman said:
We expect that our main contribution to the Western deterrent over the next decade will be provided by weapons carried in aircraft …
The right hon. Gentleman talks here of a ten-year look-ahead, and yet he is helping to bring to Clydeside, at some date which has not yet been intimated, the so-called Polaris, which was conceived, designed, developed and built within four years. Despite that, he is still thinking in terms of ten years—and at the end of that ten-year period he will still be tied to the V-bomber, in its new Mark II version.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is not my hon. Friend doing the Minister an injustice? My hon. Friend says that the Minister brought Polaris here, but is it not a fact that Polaris was forced upon him?

Mr. Watkinson: indicated dissent.

Mr. Rankin: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. Now I am between the devil and the deep sea.

Mr. Hughes: Between the devil and Holy Loch.

Mr. Rankin: But from the intervention I made today, and which the Minister nicely slipped round, I think that there is some truth in what my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) says, because it is well known that the negotiations preceding the agreement to bring Proteus and her Polaris submarines to Holy Loch took nearly ten months. That was a long time. It seems that there must have been a feeling that Proteus along with Polaris, might have found a safer place than Holy Loch.
I gather, though I do not know what truth there is in it, that there are some people who would accept it on Tayside. I would not like it there. I can see no advantage in that. It is well known that in Norway there are magnificent fiords where a vessel such as Proteus might find safe harbourage and be much nearer to its objective than in Holy Loch.
I wondered when the right hon. Gentleman was talking about cooperation within N.A.T.O., if any suggestion had been made either from Norway or to Norway by the right hon. Gentleman that perhaps her contribution to co-operation in N.A.T.O. might be expressed in a desire to offer facilities for Proteus and Polaris. There is a widespread feeling that Norway was invited to be the host, but declined, and that Polaris was ultimately forced upon this country.
I return to my second illustration of what seems to be the incompetence of those who are directing our defence. I quoted the apparent slowness in developing the weapons which are intended for our defence and I mentioned Polaris. Now I give Seaslug, which is being developed as a defence against manned aircraft attack on the Royal Navy over the next ten years. Who is to say that at the end of ten years there will be any chance of manned attack on the Royal Navy? Yet at the moment we are preparing a defence against it. There are many other matters in the White Paper which I would have liked to deal with, but I presume that in the Estimates there will be ample scope for examining them in more detail.
I turn with interest to the last page of the White Paper, page 19, on which we are given an outline of Britain's alliances within the free world. I take, first, the Central Treaty Organisation, which consists of the United Kingdom, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. Looking at that fragile group, how much can Turkey be expected to contribute, and how much can we depend on her? Which side of Pakistan is meant, West or East Pakistan? East Pakistan is seeking not separation, because that may be a word now being used too early, but we know that already friction between East and West Pakistan is taking shape. In West Pakistan, there is a type of society completely different from that in East Pakistan. In West Pakistan, there is the old feudal, patriarchal set-up while there is the business set-up of East Pakistan, and between the two there is strain. That is part of our alliance in the Middle East and it is obviously very unstable.
In the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation we again have Pakistan and there is also Thailand, neither of which can be regarded as a very reliable instrument of support. Each organisation is backed by this country and chiefly by the United States of America.
I turn to the N.A.T.O. Alliance. The Minister said that a large part of our defence effort was assigned to N.A.T.O. When one sees that Portugal is part of Britain's alliances within the free world, the wonder is how we managed to keep Spain out. Obviously, each of those alliances depends for its coherence and strength not on this country, but on the United States of America. America has bases in most of them and in N.A.T.O. has the supreme command. In all she holds the keys to the obliterative weapon. She has an economic and military power greater than the combined power of her 14 allies in N.A.T.O. She therefore obviously dominates the alliance, not only militarily, but economically, and it follows that all N.A.T.O. policy is bound to reflect the policy of the United States.
The result is that the N.A.T.O. to which we now belong is not the N.A.T.O. that we joined. We joined N.A.T.O. as a defensive organisation, recognised as such under the United Nations. Immediately we incorporated Western Germany into N.A.T.O. it became an offensive weapon. It penetrated nearer Russia.


It was a probe towards Russia, and it completely changed its function from a defensive to an offensive weapon. In doing so, it conflicted with the purpose of the United Nations.
The Charter of the United Nations lays down that the nations which join the United Nations will sign the Charter which says that they pledge themselves not to go to war over differences in policy, but that they will try to resolve those differences by peaceful methods, and, if they fail to resolve them by peaceful methods, they will go on trying to do so, but they shall not resort to war as a method of solving their difficulties.
Russia has a seat on the Security Council, and so have we. Yet, while we sit in the Security Council on terms of friendship with America, Russia and France, in N.A.T.O. we treat Russia as a potential enemy. The right hon. Gentleman's speech pointed towards Russia as a potential enemy, and the White Paper emphasises that fact. That is its basis.
On Saturday of this week Proteus arrives here as an indicator of that policy.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: My hon. Friend is discussing an interesting subject with kindred problems arising from it. He referred to the interdependence of N.A.T.O. countries. I am sure that my non. Friend realises the possibility of conflict over the Island of Formosa, where America and China could enter into armed warfare. China being tied by treaty to Russia, Russia would also be brought in. We have a Polaris base here does my hon. Friend think that that would bring us into the conflict, even though we had never consented to the base being here, or does he agree with the Minister of Defence that interdependence would bring us into a war over Formosa whether we liked it or not?

Mr. Rankin: I agree completely with my hon. Friend about the dangers of our situation and the fact that we are now becoming so deeply involved with America that her quarrel might possibly become our quarrel.
In view of my hon. Friend's intervention I want to recall to the House an occasion when the Secretary of State in President Eisenhower's Administration

was before the Senate. In America, they have a very interesting custom. Before a Minister is appointed to high office he must go before the Senate and state how he proposes to behave and what his policy and plans are.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: And what his shares are.

Mr. Rankin: We believe in fair shares here. It would be an admirable idea if, when the Government appointed a new Minister, he had to come before a meeting of the Opposition to tell them exactly what his policy intentions were, so that we could examine them more completely than is possible in a debate of this nature.

Mr. Hughes: Is my right hon. Friend in favour of the system adopted in the United States in this connection? When the United States Minister of Defence, Mr. Macnamara, was appointed he had to go before a committee which compelled him to give up his shares in the Ford Motor Company.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): We had better get back to the debate.

Mr. Rankin: Perhaps I was overgenerous in giving way, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I shall now remain on my feet until I finish, which will not be long.
In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), I would say that there is a danger of America's quarrels becoming our quarrels. I was going to point out what happened in the Senate when Mr. Herter, the former Secretary of State, appeared before it. He was questioned about his policy with regard to nuclear war, and he said:
I cannot conceive of any President involving us in all-out nuclear war unless the facts showed clearly we are in danger of all-out devastation ourselves, or that actual moves have been made towards devastating ourselves.
That shows clearly—and this has been emphasised by other Americans—that although we are committed to America she is not necessarily committed to us. If she were, under N.A.T.O. she would be committed to 14 separate nations, which would be an absolutely impossible situation. In the light of that possibility the whole N.A.T.O. policy of the right hon. Gentleman stands condemned.
I know it has been said that there are 350,000 American soldiers and their dependants in Europe, and that America would not leave them abandoned, but we must remember that under President Eisenhower the order was sent out calling back more and more of those dependants over a certain number of years. If we weigh the safety of the 350,000 soldiers—who have joined knowing they have taken a risk—against the safety of nearly 130 million people, we can see that it is obvious that America would take no action to endanger her own population. I therefore submit that we cannot depend upon the presence of American forces on this side of the Atlantic as a reliable insurance against non-intervention.
The Defence White Paper will not produce the peace which the Minister seeks. He may find it, when his defence ideas become an instrument of foreign policy and do not dominate it and when he starts to strengthen the United Nations, not weaken it as he is doing now by his White Paper. In circus terms, he is trying to ride two horses at the same time—a horse called "Uno" and a horse called "Nato", and they are running in opposite directions. Like Humpty Dumpty, the right hon. Gentleman will take a great fall and the danger is that he may bring millions of innocent people down with him.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams: When I read through this White Paper my first reaction was not only that it was an extremely flimsy document, but that, if perchance it should find its way into Russian hands—and through the Russian Embassy it is quite possible that it would—they would begin to think that we could not possibly be serious about defence. When one looks at the illustrations on the latter pages one cannot take this White Paper too seriously.
There are two passages in the Report on Defence which I find of great interest. The first is paragraph 31, where there is a reference to the five-year review, or five-year forward look, which seems to me to be a fundamental step in the right direction towards financial control of expenditure in our defence programme. The two graphs on the bottom of page 9 I also find interesting. Having made my criticism of the pretty pictures, I must

say that I found two of them to be particularly interesting because I could understand them.
I have two profound worries which arise out of the White Paper. The first is that the two graphs at the bottom of page 9 show conclusively that defence expenditure is a declining percentage of our gross national product. In the second one it is shown that defence expenditure as a proportion of the total central Government current expenditure is also declining. I cannot believe that in an age when we find ourselves to be short of manpower we can complain too strongly at this declining expenditure, because it seems to me that the nation is getting its priorities wrong. In other fields, I pursue as vigorously as I can the control of Government expenditure. However, defence is one area in which economy must be carefully looked at, not just with a view to economy but to great economy. I begin to wonder, when looking at these two graphs, whether we are not going a little too far in our curtailment of expenditure on conventional forces.
This brings me to my second point, the size and the intended size of conventional forces. On 7th November, 1960, the Minister for Defence was reported as having said:
While the Army might prefer 170,000 to 180,000, the total of 165,000 will be sufficient to meet our world commitments, and we shall have to manage".
I know that these words have been bandied backwards and forwards many times since then, but it is a tragedy that we should have to take a view of defence in which "we shall have to manage". This is far too much the attitude of decline and being forced into a situation where we cannot defend our national and our Commonwealth interest. On this score I regret that phrase, although at the time it might have been—

Mr. Watkinson: It was not even correctly reported.

Mr. Williams: Perhaps, then, we shall have a statement during the debate giving in greater detail what is meant by these various figures of 165,000 or 180,000. What is meant by the other figure of 200,000 to which reference has been made?

Mr. Watkinson: It is clearly set out in the White Paper and, I trust, it was


clearly set out in the answer which was given to the intervention made earlier. The figure of 165,000 is our immediate target because that is the minimum figure we must have at the end of National Service, but the figure that the Army needs and which, I think, will fulfil its proper requirement, is, as the White Paper says, just over 180,000—let us say, if hon. Members like, 182,000 or thereabouts.

Mr. Williams: The House must remain profoundly in doubt about these two figures, 165,000 and 180,000. If we take the lower figure it will demand considerable reductions in the development of the Army, particularly overseas, and considerable reductions in commitments overseas. One obviously thinks of the possibility, if we are forced into reductions in our commitments in the Far East, for example, of reductions in Malaya, and possibly reductions in North Africa as well.
I cannot believe that either of these potential reductions, if one is forced to the figure of 165,000, can provide for the maintenance of peace and security, not just in the world in general, but in the Commonwealth of Nations. That is why when we hear this figure of 165,000 the House should be profoundly disturbed. Even if my right hon. Friend can secure the 180,000 which he regards—

Mr. Paget: Before the hon. Member leaves that point, may I interrupt him? He said that the Minister said, "We shall have to manage with 165,000". The Minister then interrupted him to say "I did not say that". If he did not say that, what did he say?

Mr. Williams: That is a very interesting interjection and it again becomes a three-party argument. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) will pursue that at a suitable moment in the debate, or in a later one.
If we take the figure of 180,000 we are still in the region of stretching our Army to the ultimate limit, even on that higher level. Even with the increased mobility through successive appointments which the Minister has tried to get for the Services, whether through Transport Command or added support by the civil operators, the work of the Army is bound

to be at full stretch and its ability to cope with commitments will be suspect. One has only to go back to the 200,000 and even higher figures which have been mentioned.
Because I have promised to curtail my remarks, those are the two simple points I want to make. The first is the declining proportion of the gross national product for defence expenditure and the second the figure, whether it is 165,000 or 180,000, which leaves me profoundly disturbed about our ability to meet the conventional needs of a conventional Commonwealth. I ask my right hon. Friend: how much is this decline of manpower also a decline of willpower—willpower to maintain the defence of the Commonwealth in a changing, shifting world where something needs to be known? The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) mentioned the danger of withdrawing forces from the Far East snowballing into chaos throughout that area.
The one thing which we should be able to bank on in foreign policy and defence policy is adequate ground forces. I do not believe that the House has been completely assured in the debate that those ground forces are there yet. Therefore, having this fear and concern, I ask the Government not altogether to dismiss the possibilities, which have been mentioned already in the debate, of selective call-up. It may well be that if we continue to have a shortage of recruits to which the hon. Member for Dudley referred we shall need to think again about the possibility of a selective call-up. Perchance that would cause some inconvenience to the Regular Services, but it is an inconvenience which must be met, for, after all, the Armed Services are not raised and trained for their convenience. They are raised, as they know and appreciate full well, for the defence of this land. So, if it be necessary that there should be a selective call-up, let it be so.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: It is one of the agreeable customs of the House that those who have the privilege of winding up a debate also have the privilege of congratulating hon. Members on their maiden speeches. I should like to add my congratulations to those already accorded to the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings).


He spoke with a very real knowledge of his subject, and I am sure that the House will look forward to hearing him again in our debates.
It is a truism that a good foreign policy is the best defence policy. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) did the House a great service in setting our defence problems in the foreign policy context. I should like to endorse what he said about disarmament. We are all agreed that the opening of the White Paper, on disarmament, is the most satisfactory part of it, and I accept the sincerity of the Minister when he says that he and the Government will exert all their efforts in this direction.
I ask the Minister not to be too pessimistic about the possibility of some success. As was said by my hon. Friend, this year is perhaps more encouraging than many in the last decade. I have a feeling that disarmament is rather like learning to walk—the first steps are by far the most difficult. With increasing confidence that success with the first steps gives, we shall probably be able to walk much faster. It is a good thing that the Ministry of Defence is of this mind, because it is sometimes said that those who want disarmament most do not know how to get it and those who do know how to get it—the experts—do not want it. I hope that at no time will our defence experts stand in the way of a possible disarmament agreement. We should also make quite clear that until we do get general controlled disarmament, by stages or otherwise, we must have effective defence, and this debate is on that question.
Although they have spent £14,000 million since 1951, have the Government provided this country with effective defence? It is on that basis that I turn to what is left of the White Paper, after the devastating attack already made on it by the unlikely but very effective coalition of my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds, East and for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones). I was not aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley had ever been in any danger of being expelled from the Labour Party. I can assure my hon. Friend, for what my assurance is worth, that no one who

expresses his views honestly on the Floor of the House is ever in danger of expulsion from the Labour Party.
One can commend the idea behind the White Paper this year, namely, to concentrate on the broad field of defence and to leave a good many of the details about "hardware" and so on to the individual Service Estimates. One could also say that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in introducing the debate matched the document. It would be quite easy to maintain that both were quite extraordinary.
We all know that the White Paper did not receive a very good Press. I was particularly taken with the comments of the Daily Mail on 15th February under the heading "Cagey". It said:
The reader of the White Paper on defence who looks to it for some enlightenment on defence will look in vain. He will find a wealth of platitudes and some useless diagrams. This so-called Report on Defence is so cagey that it was a waste of money to publish it.
That was perhaps a little hard, because the Daily Mail reproduced some of the diagrams on the following page. I will give the Minister that point.
My own impression on reading the White Paper was that it was someone's notes on the subject of defence, complete with the doodles, and that neither had been effectively worked out. The Minister must take the responsibility for the document, because on the front it says:
Presented to Parliament by the Minister of Defence".
I ask him to ensure that on future occasions the ideas in the White Paper are a little more clearly worked out. I do not want to be hard on the Minister or to call upon him to resign or anything of that sort.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Why not?

Mr. Mulley: First, because we recall his predecessor, and wonder who might be called upon to succeed him. Secondly, we have the experience now that by putting skids under a Minister one seats him more firmly in the chair in the Administration opposite. We have the example of the Foreign Secretary, now the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the more recent example of the Patronage Secretary.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: Is my hon. Friend suggesting that the present Minister of Defence is an improvement on the last one?

Mr. Mulley: I have never been terribly good at splitting hairs, but as I develop my remarks I think I shall carry my hon. Friend with me that in one very important aspect indeed the present Minister is better than the last. I think that he has a more realistic appraisal of the consequences of using nuclear weapons.
As well as receiving a bad Press the Minister has been in trouble with both the Bow Group and the Young Conservative Conference. It is true, as he said in an intervention in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East, that he persuaded them that we should have an independent deterrent, but he did not persuade them to put back in their Motion the words that were, I understand, rejected, namely, an endorsement of the Government's defence policy.
A week ago the political correspondent of the Observer said that the White Paper and the Government's defence policy had been discussed by Conservative back benchers in terms which would have outraged the chastity of his column had he dared to reprint them.
We are, therefore, discussing a White Paper which has not commanded very great enthusiasm. It has not fulfilled the main function of the Defence White Paper, namely, to give us sufficient information properly to judge the effectiveness or otherwise of the Government's defence policy.
By saying, as the Minister did so often in his speech, that he was being frank and factual when he was referring to the White Paper, he did less than justice to his powers of evasion. Only a few days ago a political scientist put to me the serious proposition that, unless the Labour Party continued to have public arguments on the real issues of the day, there would be no forum at all for forming public opinion in this country. The Government owe a responsibility to the House and to the people to provide the information on which their policies can be judged. This year at any rate I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the Government that they will not escape

from their obligation to defend their policy by making cheap cracks about differences on the part of the Opposition It is our intention to do our full duty in turning the searchlight of public opinion on to the Government's policy.
The extraordinary thing about our defence information and the wealth of detail in the Estimates is that we have all sorts of miscellaneous information. We know, for example, the cost of animal feedingstuffs in the Royal Air Force. We know the hard-lying allowance for the Navy. It is true that this year, by some change of policy, we are not given in the Army Estimates the extra cost of Gurkha hair-cuts.
We are given a wealth of detailed information, but we are not given that basic information about manpower, overseas bases and strategic mobility on which one must depend if one is to form a judgment on policy. Hon. Members are obliged to do their own research in order to come to these debates adequately prepared.
There is, of course, the problem of security, but one cannot resist the feeling that all too often there is a temptation to term information "classified" in order to cover up the absence of an agreed and clear policy. I would not favour the idea of a defence committee or any other mechanism that would enable members of the Opposition or other hon. Members being given secret information, but is the Minister really satisfied that all the information that is allegedly "classified" really justifies being put in that category? We are all familiar with the view of the official in the Foreign Office who, when asked about the New York Times, said, "It is a very interesting newspaper, but it is full of classified information." The House is entitled to much more information than it gets.
Another very important thing to get clear is whether or not the Government's policy has changed over the last years. The Minister was most anxious to suggest that there was no change between his policy and that presented to the House by his predecessor from 1957 onwards. This is a vital matter. Does he really think that paragraph 12 of the 1958 White Paper still stands? Is he really suggesting that it is consistent with what he has tried to indicate in this year's White Paper and in his speech today?
To refresh the memory of the House, I will quote from paragraph 12 of the 1958 White Paper. It reads:
The democratic Western nations will never start a war against Russia. But it must be well understood that, if Russia were to launch a major attack on them, even with conventional forces only, they would have to hit back with strategic nuclear weapons.

Hon. Members: Read on.

Mr. Mulley: Yes, I will read on:
In fact, the strategy of N.A.T.O. is based on the frank recognition that a full-scale Soviet attack could not be repelled without resort to a massive nuclear bombardment of the sources of power in Russia.
Does the Minister still stand by that statement? If he does, I can tell him that it is completely rejected as part of the N.A.T.O. strategy, and I reject it completely tonight. I do not see how that can possibly be held to be consistent with the White Paper we are now considering. The Minister could well have pondered his own words that we should not twist defence facts. He should come quite clean on how we stand in regard to N.A.T.O. strategy on this point.

Viscount Lambton: The hon. Gentleman has raised such an important point that perhaps the Minister might like to reply to it now.

Mr. Mulley: I am very willing to give way to the Minister if he should so desire.

Mr. Watkinson: My reply, as the hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware, is that with the permission of the House I propose to wind up the debate tomorrow night.

Mr. Mulley: I am glad to be able to give the Minister time in which to consult and think, because this is a very important question. I am very grateful to the noble Lord the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton) because there is one point on which one can say that policies have not changed. I am grateful to him also for an article which he wrote in the Evening Standard on 17th November, 1959, in which he said:
Far called, our Navies melt away.
So, prophetically, wrote Kipling in 1897. If you insert the words "Armies" and "Air Forces" after Navies you get our effective military strength in 1959. I think that paragraph could, and perhaps will, be written again by the noble Lord this year, because it is just as apt a

description of the present state of our defences as it was in 1959. If that is what the Minister means by the policy not having changed, I must agree that he has a great deal of force behind his contention.
Before coming to the main issue of defence I should like to make one or two brief points about the details of the White Paper. I should like the Minister to tell us what is going to happen about the Thor missile. Is it the Government's intention to pursue the policy of the Thor missile, which is at best a first-strike weapon, and, I would have said, a dangerous weapon to have? Will he tell us—the White Paper is very reticent about the Thor missile—what are the Government's proposals?
As I mentioned, we get little guidance about strategic mobility in the document. Already the point has been touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley and others, and it seems surprising that the only large freighters, the Belfast freighters, are not to be with us until 1964. I should have thought that transport by air ought to have a higher priority than it has in our plans. I recognise that there is to be a further allocation for this purpose in the present Estimates, but I should like the Minister to read the reasons which prompted President Kennedy, as one of his first acts, to increase the air transport facilities of the American forces.
We have heard very little about overseas bases and what our commitments really are. In the old days, it was thought that the purpose of an overseas base was to increase mobility and to permit people to get somewhere faster than they otherwise could do. I wonder whether, in the era of air transport, the Government are justified simply out of tradition, and whether or not today one may say that the tying down of troops in a large number of bases does not impede our mobility rather than assist it.
I should like to mention two other points arising from the White Paper. I refer to paragraphs 26 and 31. In paragraph 26 the Minister talks about the:
… harmonisation of Service requirements…


and says that:
In particular, special attention will be paid to this requirement in the planning of successors to the current generation of aircraft.
I wonder if he really had this in mind in the controversy going on about the NA 39, the Buccaneer, which will become operational in the next twelve months, and the TSR 2 for the Air Force, a similar type of plane, which will not be available until 1964. Could we have a reply on that point?
Finally, I would say something about paragraph 31. The idea set out in that paragraph is extraordinarily interesting and helpful, but I would ask why is this study done
 … in the early summer of each year".
Is it a coincidence that by then all our defence debates are concluded and there is usually no prospect of a further defence debate for a very long time? If, as I say, the Minister is trying to get a commitment forward for five years, is there any reason why this information should not be given to the House?

Mr. Watkinson: I shall study that. The summer is normally the gestation time when we are working towards the Budget for the following year. I take the point, which the hon. Gentleman has made, and, if I can, I shall give the House information about forward costings. I shall gladly look into it.

Mr. Mulley: I think that it would be of immense interest if we were to see the trends of expenditure of this policy projected forward for five years. The real point at issue—and to do justice to the Minister I think that he rather anticipated a debate of this kind—is the question of what kind of defence policy we ought to pursue in broad terms. A good deal has been said already in the debate about interdependence, but I did not get that impression from reading the documents. I got the impression that the Government still have a world-wide outlook which is appropriate to a large, world Power, which we certainly today are not. In reality, at least we cannot match up to the resources of either the Soviet Union or the United States. I appreciate that the evaluation of this hard fact may be difficult for some hon. Members opposite.
It seems to me extraordinary that all the documents, with the exception of the Memorandum to the Air Estimates, contain a map of the world. In passing, I would congratulate the Secretary of State for Air on his originality in not having one in his Memorandum. One gets, to use the technical jargon, the impression that the Government want to have a full spectrum of options. They still want us to be able to do just what we like in the world. They have not yet understood that we cannot. By trying to provide a little of this and a little of that to meet any possible world contingency, they are quite unable to meet any serious crisis outside the N.A.T.O. area. The Times asked, what would be the difficulties we should have to face if things went wrong in Northern Rhodesia and military intervention was required there?
Equally, the Government are failing to play their proper part in the N.A.T.O. alliance. I do not want the right hon. Gentleman to take it only from me. There is a quotation which I would put to him from the Economist of 17th December, which, I think, sums up our position in the N.A.T.O. alliance:
At present this country cannot avoid the charge that, on N.A.T.O. terms, it is a bad ally. Britain still clings to its own independent deterrent; it is also resolved to get back to its Mons army. Neither policy is calculated to help S.H.A.P.E. at all, and if the British delegation returns from the ministerial talks in Paris without an impression of its declining influence in N.A.T.O. affairs, it will be either inordinately lucky or surprisingly insensitive.
No one who has talked with people in other European countries during recent months will doubt that our standing and influence both on the Continent of Europe and within N.A.T.O. is very low today compared with what it was some years ago.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Does the hon. Member think that our French allies are opposed to the conception of an independent national deterrent?

Mr. Mulley: I go so far as to say that all the trouble we have had with France arises because we insist on pursuing this objective and, quite naturally, the French say that, if we must have one, they must have one, too. That point was made very clearly, I think, by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East in dealing very effectively earlier today


with the problem of the spread of nuclear weapons. How can we put to other countries the argument that they should not have nuclear capability if we insist ourselves on pursuing into the future the objective of an independent nuclear deterrent? While the kernel of the argument is the future of the independent deterrent, there are raised the wider questions of our place in the world to which I have referred already.
There is no need for me to go again over ground covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East, but I wish to refer to the great help on this point we had from the right hon. Member for Hall Green. I am quite satisfied
that there are no political, military or economic reasons for our desire to remain an independent nuclear Power in the next decade. My hon. Friend asked the Minister to tell us which members of the N.A.T.O. alliance have expressed the view that our contribution to the deterrent is of any value at all. We have, of course, co-ordination arrangements with the United States Air Force but, so far as I know, neither the United States nor any of the other N.A.T.O. allies would worry at all if we said that we intended no longer to try to remain an independent nuclear Power.
It is on these basic assumptions that we differ from the Government. In our view, the prime tasks of N.A.T.O. are these. First, we should build up a sufficient conventional strength to enable us to deal with conventional attacks by wholly conventional means, so that we can enforce a pause if, as my hon. Friend said, a local war should start by miscalculation or mistake. Secondly, we should seek to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons. Thirdly, we should try to achieve through N.A.T.O. a satisfactory political control of military strategy.
It is often said that the object of political control conflicts with the speed necessary for military decision. There is on question but that strategic nuclear weapons, particularly, must remain firmly within political control. I imagine that to be the case both in the United States and in this country. The argument in the case of strategic weapons is not whether there should be political control

or military control. It is an argument whether there should be joint political control within the alliance or whether as at present the control should be exclusively in national hands.
The difficult decision is probably not how to arrange for an immediate retaliation in the event of a surprise full-out attack by an aggressor on us or on part of N.A.T.O. territory. The difficult question is, if there should be a conventional war, at what point and how one should raise the stakes from conventional to nuclear weapons, and if this difficult decision is to be taken, the question of there being means of taking a decision in 10, 15 or 25 minutes does not arise. There is time to have political consultations so that all members of the alliance have an opportunity of participating in the really vital decisions of the alliance.
As we have developed since 1954 the use of tactical atomic weapons with our troops, without I think realising what we have been doing, there is an equal need to bring the control or at least the initial use of any such weapons firmly into political hands. I understand that SACEUR is subject to some general directions in this matter, but I ask what thought the Government have given to it and whether or not they would put forward the idea developed by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East today that there is a case for bringing these weapons out of the front line and organising them, as the Russian tactical atomic weapons are organised, under a chain of command quite separate from that of infantry units.
In all these matters there is clearly a conflict between two points of view. There is a conflict between those who approach defence from the point of view of how best we can avoid war, and those who approach it from the position of the Services which are bound to look at it very much more from the angle of how they would fight a war if one started. Sometimes I think that we are not fair to those who are in charge of military operations if we do not make clear the point where political decision must over-vide military expediency.
If an airman, for example, is directed to bomb a target, he will use nuclear weapons if he is not told not to do so. If he did not bomb a target with a


nuclear weapon he might need a hundred bombs to destroy the target by conventional means. Responsibility for seeing that there is no escalation from a conventional incident to a nuclear war rests firmly with the political arm of the alliance and, as I see it, at present there are no arrangements to ensure this.
I would be against the idea of N.A.T.O. being a fourth nuclear Power, because I think that that is a wasteful use of our resources. The alliance as such is not short of nuclear bombs. Taking the alliance as a whole, the main military problem is the means of delivery. But, over and above the military problem, for the well-being of the alliance, the main point is that there should be a joint political control so that no member should feel itself to be a second-class member of the alliance. As I think that we ourselves will now sooner or later be a non-nuclear Power, surely we should understand more fully the importance of this point and put it forward in N.A.T.O. deliberations.

9.35 p.m.

Mr. John Hall: I should like to begin by joining the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park, (Mr. Mulley) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) upon his maiden speech. I can remember only too well making my own maiden speech—more years ago than I care to think about—and I only wish that I had made it with the assurance and obvious knowledge of the subject that was displayed by my hon. Friend. The two points that he raised, one about the need not to lose the experience we have accumulated in different types of warfare in Korea, Malaya, Cyprus, and so on, and the one about paragraphs 23 and 24 of the White Paper on the need for interdependence, were extremely good ones.
This has been an extraordinarily quiet debate.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: And a very badly attended one.

Mr. Hall: Listening to it, I was reminded of Sherlock Holmes's observation that the strange thing about the dog was that it did not bark. I do not know why the debate has been so quiet. I suppose that we shall have the "fireworks" tomorrow, when the other Labour Party

policy on defence is put before the House. However, today we have had a constructive debate in which hon. Members on both sides have tried to approach this very difficult problem of defence very seriously and to make contributions which will be of some value. I found myself from time to time agreeing with the things which were said by the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) and other hon. Members opposite.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: If it will be any satisfaction to the hon. Member, perhaps I might predict that he will find that hon. Members on the Opposition benches will be highly satisfied with the presentation of our case which was given to the House this afternoon by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey).

Mr. Hall: I am sure that the hon. Member for Leeds, East will be highly satisfied with that unsolicited testimonial, though I doubt very much that he expected it.
Listening to the debate, I thought there was something in what The Times had to say in its second leader today when it suggested that not much difference would emerge in the debate as between the policy advanced by the official Labour Party and the policy advanced by Her Majesty's Government. By and large, with one or two notable exceptions, that was not so far wrong, and I want to deal with one or two of the notable exceptions.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park referred to the fact that there was one major point with which we were all in agreement, and that was paragraph 1 of the White Paper, which refers to disarmament. All of us agree with that; but the trouble about disarmament is that one cannot disarm with any lasting results unless one also solves the major political problems. If one does not solve those problems, disarmament will not last. Human nature being what it is, and in view of the great capacity to disagree that we have, we should find some way again of arming and of fighting each other. Therefore, disarmament must come side by side with the solving of the major outstanding political problems.

Mr. Stan Awbery: Surely there can be only one remedy,


and that is agreement. There is nothing in the White Paper about agreement. We have N.A.T.O. mentioned twelve times, but the United Nations, the organisation designed to bring about agreement, is not mentioned at all.

Mr. Hall: The Defence White Paper has to restrict its scope; otherwise, it would be a large volume which would be impossible to read.
I listened with great interest to the speech by the hon. Member for Leeds, East, and I found it a very thoughtful and extremely good contribution which was, if I may say so without any attempt at condescension on my part, noteworthy for two omissions. First, he managed to avoid any reference to the possibility of National Service—unless I misheard him—and, secondly, he made only a slight, passing reference to the possible future threat offered to us by China. His only reference to that was that this might be used as an excuse by the Services to maintain their forces in that part of the world in order to offset falling commitments elsewhere.
I can understand the hon. Member's avoidance of dealing with the possible threat from China too much, because part of his case, as I understood it, for stressing that we should strengthen the conventional forces of N.A.T.O.—the Rhine Army in Germany—was that we should be able to withdraw our troops from overseas commitments which were no longer needed. Although he did not say so, the implication was that, by cutting out unnecessary overseas commitments, we would be able to strengthen the British forces in N.A.T.O. without the unpleasant necessity of having to resort to National Service.

Mr. Healey: I should like to clear this matter up once and for all. I thought that I had made it clear that I did not think it would be necessary for N.A.T.O. to increase the manpower at present allocated in Europe in order to implement its strategy. I recommended, however, that it would be necessary greatly to improve the equipment, both in mobility and in other directions. The reason why I referred to overseas commitments was that I share the views of a large number of Members on both sides of the House that the commitments the Government already have are unlikely to be fulfilled

by the target they have set for the Regular forces.

Mr. Hall: That is another point, and I will come to it later. As I understood it the hon. Gentleman based his attack on the White Paper primarily on two main points. One was that he was against an independent British nuclear deterrent, and the other was that we should do our best to ensure that N.A.T.O. was made less reliant on the use of atomic weapons, and that it would be necessary, therefore, to increase, in some form or other, our conventional strength, either by manpower or by fire power.
I understood him to say that our allies do not really welcome our present independent contribution to the nuclear deterrent. I find that hard to believe. It is my information that the United States welcomes the presence of our V-bomber force very much as a most valuable contribution at present. If one wanted one or two reasons why, at this time in history, it may be necessary to have our own independent contribution, one could do no better than quote the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. It is only a year ago, in a defence debate in this House, that he said:
The real case for having our own independent nuclear weapons is fear of excessive dependence upon the United States."—(OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1960; Vol. 618, c. 1136.]
I was very interested to notice that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) gave support to that point of view. He said, quoting Mr. Herter, that it would be very unlikely that the United States would want to commit itself to go to the aid of any N.A.T.O. country in Europe that might be threatened, or, indeed, attacked, by nuclear weapons, because of the reprisals she would attract on to herself. Surely that supports what the Leader of the Opposition said twelve months ago?
I find it hard to understand what has happened which has caused the official Labour Opposition to depart from the point of view expressed then. I can conceive that there may well be circumstances arising in the future when it would be nonsense for us to continue having an independent deterrent, but I do not think that we have reached that stage at this moment. But I think it would be wrong for us alone to go ahead


with the development of a new missile as a vehicle for delivery, because I believe that it is beyond our financial resources and that we start a little too far behind. Nevertheless, at this point of time there is no doubt that our independent contribution to N.A.T.O. is very valuable and one without which the N.A.T.O. forces could not well manage.
The second point of the hon. Member for Leeds, East was one with which I have some sympathy—that we should do our best to make N.A.T.O. forces less reliant on the use of atomic weapons, by which I took it that he meant tactical weapons in the field. I think that it is generally agreed that we would be very unlikely to use strategic weapons unless we were first attacked, so that they would be second and not first-strike weapons. What we are now discussing is the use of tactical atomic weapons in the field.
At this stage, I should express my own personal point of view—I do not say that it is official—about the use of nuclear weapons generally. I agree with the hon. Member that we must have conventional forces strong enough for us not to be forced into the use of nuclear weapons in the initial stages, but, nevertheless, that we have to have those weapons to protect ourselves from attack and that we should make it quite clear, without peradventure, that if we are in danger of being defeated by conventional arms, then we will use them. There are certain problems about adopting that point of view.

Mr. Fernyhough: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that if we were ever to use them the whole basis of this defence policy would collapse? This is a policy of deterrence, and if strategic nuclear weapons are ever used the deterrent has failed and the world is no more.

Mr. Hall: The hon. Member has not done me the justice of listening with his usual close attention to what I was saying. I am discussing the use of tactical weapons in the field, dealing with limited battles or wars which are small and more contained than would be a world war, with the background of strategic weapons and the all-devastating powerful nuclear weapons which might be used against respective countries and which would be in themselves a major

deterrent. The tactical weapons that am talking about are those used to deny ground and to make up, as we are using them at the moment, for the fact that there are not enough troops to cover the area for which the Rhine Army is responsible.
The problems which arise from taking this point of view are that at present the Rhine Army is deployed on the assumption that it will employ tactical atomic weapons if attacked. It is organised on the basis of brigade groups which can disperse very quickly. The whole of the tactical plan is based entirely on the concept of dispersal in the face of and using tactical atomic weapons. The problem of maintaining that deployment and yet denying ourselves the use of those weapons is that we are at a serious disadvantage if we face a conventional attack. It is the wrong kind of deployment for that kind of battle.
Therefore, we would have to redeploy our forces and deliberately decide so to deploy them as to meet a potential conventional attack, accepting two risks—first, the risk that the forces which we are likely to be able to deploy over the next few years will be quite inadequate without tactical atomic weapons to hold any serious threat made against them, and, secondly, the possible threat that we might find the enemy would start by using tactical atomic weapons when we were deployed to meet a conventional attack.
In both cases we would start at a serious disadvantage. That is not to say that we should not try to solve the problem, but we should be quite clear what the problem is.

Mr. Healey: There is one small point to put to the hon. Member and Which a Government spokesman may care to take up. Although, in -some respects, our front line deployment in Europe is for a limited nuclear war, the whole of our logistical organisation assumes that the war will be conventional, so that we are getting the worst of both worlds and cannot fight one or the other war.

Mr. Hall: Our logistical organisation is based on a civilian third line supply and maintenance, and on that kind of organisation we will be able to fight either type of war provided that we do not have to move forward to any extent.


It is purely a defensive battle for which we are prepared.
I would not entirely support the present deployment or, indeed, training programme of the Rhine Army. It suffers from many defeats, largely the defect of the absence of sufficient troops, which make even its existing units under-strength. It makes it very difficult for it to train.
If we are to deploy conventionally in N.A.T.O., we require more men on the ground as weld as increased fire power. I do not think that we can get round this problem by pretending that we can reinforce by cutting overseas commitments, or that greater mobility and greater fire power will make up in numbers and strength of conventional deployment for the absence of the use of atomic weapons.
If we need more troops, from where will we get them? On the face of it it does not look as though we are likely to get all the forces we require from a volunteer Army. There are many advantages in having an all-Regular Army. Those advantages have been deployed on many occasions from both sides of the House in debates on the Army Estimates. One of the problems which we would face if we reintroduced National Service would be that in addition to the troops which we would need for operational use we would need an additional 12,000 to 13,000 officers and men for training and administration, so it adds considerably to the numbers we need.
We shall probably get the 165,000 men round about the time which my right hon. Friend mentioned, give or take a month or so. It is even possible that a little later we might get the 180,000 at present rates of recruiting. My only worry is whether 180,000 is the correct number. I have an unpleasant feeling that the original figure of 200,000-plus quoted on many occasions is probably much nearer the figure we really require.
The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) pointed out that in his view—and he quoted it as "Wigg's Law"—only a certain number of men, and I suppose women, too, at any one time wanted to join Her Majesty's Forces. I am not sure whether he had in mind an exact number, or was thinking of a percentage of the population. If he was thinking of a percentage of the population, then one

would expect the number joining the Army to go up as the population increased.

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Gentleman must get this right. "Wigg's Law" is not that a given number will join, but that a given number like it.

Mr. Hall: All who have served in the Army have views about whether they like it.
I have always advocated that we should strengthen our conventional forces. This is nothing new to me. Over many years, on the few occasions when I have had the good fortune to catch the eye of the Chair in debates of this kind, I have tried to stress that we should strengthen our conventional forces, because if we did not do so we were risking a nuclear war under conditions where a nuclear war should not be necessary. The logic of that, if one takes it to a logical conclusion, is that one has to be prepared to accept some form of National Service if we cannot raise a volunteer Army.
Does the hon. Member for Leeds, East accept the logic of that? If we cannot get enough fire power and enough additional troops by cutting commitments somewhere else, and we still require additional manpower to put our forces on a conventional basis and thus lessen their reliability on atomic weapons, will he be prepared to accept some form of conscription?

Mr. Healey: I accept the logic of that statement, but I am not prepared to accept the assumption on which the logical edifice is based. As is well known, Governments always refuse to answer hypothetical questions, so I cannot see why Oppositions should be asked to do so.

Mr. Hall: I can well understand the hon. Member's reluctance to answer the question. His hon. Friend the Member for Dudley was a little more forthright. He said that he would even leave the Labour Party if this came to a vote, because he believes strongly that we ought to reintroduce some form of conscription, selective or not, to make up the forces that we require.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will the hon. Member make up for the deficiencies of my hon. Friend the Member far Dudley


(Mr. Wigg) and tell us what he means by selective National Service? Does he mean, as my hon. Friend suggests, a ballot, and does he think that he will get the number of men required for a mechanised Army by a process of balloting?

Mr. Hall: The hon. Member has "jumped the gun." I did not mention selective conscription, except to quote the hon. Member for Dudley. I know that many problems are likely to accrue with selective conscription. Many have been suffered by the United States for some time. It is a very difficult form of conscription to apply. I am fully aware of the difficulties. Nevertheless, nearly all, if not all, our allies in Europe have conscription, and our potential opponents—Russia and China—have periods of conscription from two to five years and for three years respectively.
In those circumstances, it is a little difficult to justify our refusal to have it, and to rely upon an all-volunteer Army in spite of finding, in the end, that it does not yield us sufficiently large forces to meet our requirements. Therefore, if we find that we cannot raise a sufficiently large volunteer force, I would not hesitate to support Her Majesty's Government if they decided to reintroduce some form of National Service.
As a nation we abhor war, and the conscience of some part of the nation is constantly voiced by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). The fact that we abhor war is shown by our always being unprepared when it comes along. If we are to get men and women to serve in our Armed Forces, and especially to accept the idea of the reintroduction of National Service, we must make them understand why they are being asked to do it. They must be made to realise that there is a real and definite danger facing us.
The trouble with us, as a nation, and with the Western world as a whole, is that we have lived with this threat for so long that we have got used to it. The original horror of nuclear warfare no longer means anything. The devastating photographs which are sometimes shown, the occasional shocking headline appearing in the newspapers, the efforts of the

marchers to Aldermaston and the squatters on the Minister of Defence's doorstep have little affect except upon a small number of people.
It is difficult to get home to our people the fact that there is a danger and that to all intents and purposes we are at war at this moment. Throughout the world we have constant conferences, international squabbles and local wars, and these things have numbed our senses. We no longer react. We will have considerable problems facing us in getting the number of volunteers we require if we decide on the reintroduction of National Service.
One point which has not been mentioned so far in the debate is that we have never decided what we are trying to defend. Is it the freedom of the Western world, or the democratic way of life. If it is one of those, what does the conception mean to the ordinary man in the street?

Mr. Emrys Hughes: That is why we do not get any recruits.

Mr. Hall: In general, the desire of a nation is to survive and to preserve its independence, and safeguard its way and standard of life. But this, by itself, is a passive attitude, and it is a great disadvantage if it is opposed to the positive attitude of expansionist nations, with new and virile ideologies which give tremendous bite and vigour to all their efforts. That is a problem we have not yet succeeded in solving. Not only have we not got across to ourselves exactly what it is we are trying to do, but—

It being Ten o'clock the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.

COVENT GARDEN MARKET BILL

Petition of Covent Garden Tenants' Association Limited, now standing referred to the Committee on Public Petitions, referred to the Select Committee on the Covent Garden Market Bill:

Petitioners entitled to be heard upon their petition by themselves, their counsel or agents.—[Mr. Proudfoot.]

CHANCERY OF LANCASTER RULES

10.1 p.m.

Mr. Carol Johnson: I beg to move:
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Chancery of Lancaster Rules, 1961 (S.I., 1961, No. 3), dated 2nd January, 1961, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th January, be annulled.
The rules to which this Motion relates were made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster—to give him his full title—under his statutory powers, and they punport to make changes in the procedure of the Chancery Court of the County Palatine consequent upon the passing of the Charities Act, 1960.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary for me to remind the House that the Chancery Court has had a continuous history over six centuries. In fact, at one time the County Palatine had even wider judicial powers, including a court of common pleas and its own court of appeal. Since 1873, when the Supreme Court of Judicature was established, these functions have been limited to the powers and jurisdiction enjoyed by the High Court of Justice on its Chancery side. Its jurisdiction is thus unlimited in amount although limited in area to the County Palatine.
As to appeals from its decisions, these now lie to the Court of Appeal and thence to the House of Lords, in the same way as from the High Court of Justice. It is thus quite clear that its rules are quite as important as those of the High Court and should be as easily available.
When the rules now under discussion were considered by the Select Committee it was noted that they were not accompanied by the usual Explanatory Note, and moreover, it was difficult for the Committee fully to appreciate their effect as the earlier rules which it was proposed to amend were extremely difficult to trace.
At this stage, I should like to refer to the Special Report from the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments which was submitted to the House on 14th February last. The exact position in regard to the rules is set out in the Report in an extract from a letter from

the Solicitor to the Duchy of Lancaster to the Clerk of the Committee. I think that I can fairly summarise the situation in this way. The present rules date from 1884, and since then they have been amended many times. They are not reproduced in the volume of Statutory Rules and Orders revised to December, 1948, apparently on the ground—and I ask the House to take particular note of this—that access to rules of court is provided by their reproduction in consolidated form in other publications.
This is certainly true of the rules of the Supreme Court and the county courts but when the Select Committee looked for an up-to-date edition of the Lancaster rules they found it impossible to trace one. It is true that they were published in a complete form in the year 1933, but they are now hopelessly out of date, and moreover, quite unprocurable. Accordingly, the Select Committee asked the solicitors to the Duchy for copies of an up-to-date edition of the rules.
The long letter received in reply is set out in full in the Special Report to which I have referred. Reduced to its essentials, it amounts to a rejoinder that this could not be conveniently done as it would be too much trouble. On this letter I wish to make two comments. In so far as the rules of court have the same effect as the general law, it is essential that anyone in the land who is or may be affected should have access to the body of rules governing the procedure of the Court from time to time. The letter from the solicitors, I admit, shows that most of the parties directly concerned—that is, the officials and solicitors who practise in the courts—are kept informed and up to date, but these are not the rules of a closed corporation affecting only a few special people.
Secondly, and even more important from the point of view of this House, it is not customary for a request from a Select Committee in a matter in which it is directly concerned to be blocked in this way. It was clear that the Committee, after full consideration, came to the conclusion that it could not give adequate consideration to the new Instrument unless it was first provided with an up-to-date edition of the existing rules. In those circumstances, I submit, there was no room for argument but merely for compliance with its request.
In all these circumstances, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that there was no alternative but to table this Prayer in order to bring the facts before the House.
When he replies, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give the House an unqualified assurance that immediate steps will be taken to see that the existing rules are all brought together and made available for the Select Committee and, in due course, for others who may need them.
I also suggest that at some convenient time the right hon. Gentleman should consider making a new Statutory Instrument which would contain a consolidated edition of all the rules should that prove practicable. The right hon. Gentleman occupies an office of great antiquity. Although in recent years the appointment has been a political one, many of his predecessors exercised judicial functions. I am sure that my hon. Friends and I who have tabled this Prayer can rely upon him to deal with this matter in a judicial and judicious manner.

10.8 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I should like to support what my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson) has said. I take the opportunity of thanking and congratulating the Select Committee, as I am sure we all wish to do, on the work it does in looking at the Statutory Instruments which come before the House and investigating questions not only of this kind, but many others.
This is a case in which the Committee has rendered a useful purpose. I hope and trust that the right hon. Gentleman will take the matter in the right way and produce, either with or without withdrawing this particular Instrument, what obviously is needed—an up to date and complete print of the rules of the Court. The right hon. Gentleman occupies himself with many things and I suppose that from time to time it is a great temptation for any Chancellor of the Duchy to forget that his duties include that of looking after the Duchy.
In this instance the right hon. Gentleman signed these rules, referring, for instance, to the revocation of Rule 12 of Order 48 and other amendments of the same kind, and neither he nor those who

advised him seem to have been aware that the rules in question were not accessible to the ordinary public and were, in fact, contained in an out-of-date edition and in a book which, as the Report says, was virtually unprocurable.
This, of course, is not merely a matter for the lawyers who practise in this court, but for the public and, I may add, for the public interest generally. It is rather shocking that the rules of a court should have reached this stage of obscurity and difficulty. No one, except somebody who had followed the changes from time to time, would be in a position to say what were the rules at any given moment. For the ordinary person, at any rate, there was nothing to start from. If that is the way in which justice is to be administered, there is something very wrong indeed. Though it is in a sense a technical matter I regard this as one of considerable importance, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, to do him justice, will have the same feeling about it now that it has been brought to his attention, and we shall get what is required in the public interest.
I wish to add a word or two about the letter sent to the Select Committee. I suppose that people in official positions are sometimes very slow to admit faults of their own and of their office. In this case, one sees that in the terms of the letter. But if ever there was a case for simply saying, "Well, a bad mistake has been made and we will take steps to correct it," this seems to me to have been such a case; and all the rather long explanations in the letter add little to the simple fact that the rules are inaccessible to the ordinary person and difficult to get at for anyone.
I need not dwell on the matter. I am sure that we all feel the same about it, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not only undertake to produce a complete version—it does not very much matter whether this Instrument is left for the time being or not—but produce it with some speed, because now that the attention of people has been called to the deficiency I feel that the least the House and the Minister concerned ought to do is to see that the error is rapidly corrected. I see a concessionary look in the right hon. Gentleman's eye and for that reason, among others, I will not develop the matter further. I do not


expect him to make as many criticisms of his office as I have felt able to make, but I am sure that he will attend to the main purport of this order.

10.13 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Dr. Charles Hill): May I straight away join with the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) in paying tribute to the members of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments which does a great deal of unseen, undramatic but very important work. May I also thank the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson) not only for moving the Motion in so reasonable and temperate a fashion, but also for his brief reference to the long history of the Duchy of which I am proud to be Chancellor.
May I say a word or two about the background in order to get this matter in its proper setting. As the House will know, under the Chancery of Lancaster Act, 1890, the Palatine Court as regards persons and property within its jurisdiction has the same powers as the Chancery Division of the High Court. The rules which are the subject of the Prayer, namely, the Chancery of Lancaster Rules, 1961 derive, as is clear from the Statutory Instrument, from the Charities Act, 1960. The order of events was as follows. First, the High Court made its new rules deriving from that Act. Those new rules—the Rules of the Supreme Court, No. 5 of 1960—went to the Select Committee and were not the subject of any comment or objection.
The Duchy, as is customary, followed suit, making the same rules as the rules which have been before the Select Committee, subject only to those minor variations of terminology which are necessary to bring them into line with the Duchy's special position—for example, substituting "Vice-Chancellor" for "judge" and "Attorney-General of the Duchy" for "Attorney-General". In effect, we have sought to do, in Duchy terms as it were, the same as has been done in the High Court in the making of new rules under the Charities Act.
They went to the Select Committee, which asked for fifteen copies of all the rules. I do not demur in any way to that request. That meant fifteen copies of the Statutory Instruments back to 1884. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentle-

man will accept that the letter which was sent was not intended to block the Select Committee. I am sorry if the letter gave offence. We offered one copy of the rules, accompanied by such help as our Registrar could give.

Mr. Mitchison: No. It was not one copy of the rules. It was a copy of Bennett—that is, the virtually unprocurable book which was quite out of date.

Dr. Hill: I am coming to that point. The Committee wanted fifteen sets of the rules, which meant the Statutory Instruments going back to 1884. We have not got a complete set of the Statutory Instruments in that form right back to 1884. We therefore asked the Stationery Office if it could let us have those fifteen copies. The Stationery Office said that it could. It was very busy. There was a good deal of work to be done in gathering them together, as distinct from printing them. It told us that it would take two months.
The hon. and learned Gentleman put his finger on the point when he asked why we needed to go to the Stationery Office. He asked why we needed to have fifteen reprints made and why we had not got the rules available in consolidated form. The position is this. Bennett, which assimilated all the rules up to 1930, edited by a Registrar of the Chancery Court of the County Palatine, brings the position up to date to 1930. It is in effect used by the practitioners of the court, amplified by the Statutory Rules made since the date of publication.
I want to grapple with the question of why there has not been consolidation. The work of consolidation was done some years ago. It went to the printer. It was then learned that the High Court was revising all its rules. Indeed, I understand that the work is about one-third of the way through. It was decided, rightly or wrongly, that it would be better to await the revision of the High Court rules than to publish a consolidated form of the rules which would be likely to be, as it then seemed, out of date very soon. That is our present position. We are waiting for the completion of the revision of the High Court rules before publishing a consolidation.
I confess that I did not think that to be a sufficient reply to the Select Committee. I therefore decided, at considerable expense to the Duchy, to make every


effort speedily to produce in printed form the necessary number of copies of the Bennett consolidation to 1930, plus the Statutory Instruments since that time. The Stationery Office could not do it in the time, so I went to an outside printer, and, in the course of this week, there will be available in that form a complete set of the rules.
I hope to be able to deliver to the Select Committee on Wednesday or Thursday of this week a set of fifteen copies of complete prints of the rules up to date, and it is the intention that when the revision of the High Court rules is complete the Select Committee shall be presented with the rules in consolidated form—

Mr. Mitchison: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but we are told by the Select Committee that the period of waiting for the High Court rules has been, I think, three years. Surely, it does not take that amount of time to consolidate the rules? Furthermore, the rules of the High Court are changed from time to time, hence the amendments to these rules—but these are not the only rules to get consolidated. We are continually getting consolidated sets of rules. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman, not only on this occasion but on future occasions will, if I may put it courteously to him, not make quite such heavy weather about getting the set of rules consolidated.

Dr. Hill: When the hon. and learned Gentleman sees the print, as I hope he will—as he is clearly anxious for information—that will be available later this week, he will find that it consists of approximately half of the volume I have in my hand plus the rules that have been made in recent years. It is really a formidable thing. In any case, the High Court is revising the rules and we are anxious to see those revised rules before these rules are published in consolidated form.
Nevertheless, I recognise that the Select Committee is entitled to what it seeks. For the reasons I have given, that could not be done in the time, but the complete set will be available to the Select Committee in the next few days. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will think that his points have been substantially met. We have no desire whatever

to be in anyway discourteous to the Select Committee. It is fully entitled to ask, as it has asked, but the material could not be supplied in the time. But what the Select Committee sought will be supplied in the next few days.

10.18 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Perhaps I may reply to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in my capacity as Chairman of the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, to which Committee he has been good enough to pay a tribute. It is always a pleasure to see the right hon. Gentleman, not least when he appears in a white sheet. I am sure that I am speaking for all the members of the Select Committee when I say that they will accept the apology and explanation that he has been good enough to make to the House.
As a result of this debate, initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson), it is clear that it is unfortunate that these rules were not consolidated at an earlier date. In a sense, it is fortuitous that the matter came to the notice of the House in this way but, as my hon. Friend has said, the Select Committee is charged with the duty of being vigilant in respect of all Statutory Instruments that are laid before Parliament.
It is salutary that the House should be reminded from time to time that this duty that the House has delegated to the Select Committee applies not only to the Statutory Instruments made by ordinary Government Departments—if I may put it in that way—but extends equally to the rules of court made by the Lord Chancellor in respect of the rules of the High Court.
In this respect, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster stands in the same degree of responsibility for the Chancery Court of the Duchy as the Lord Chancellor does in respect of the High Court of Justice. Although the ambit of the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court of Lancaster is limited geographically compared with that of the High Court, it is in no way limited in amount, and I should have thought that it would be just as necessary for litigants and practitioners in Lancaster, as elsewhere in England, that there should be readily available a complete set of the rules governing their procedure.
Apart from that, I should have thought that it was desirable that copies of the rules were available in the Library of the House and elsewhere in case of any doubt and in case questions arose about them that required ventilation in this House. We were surprised, in the Select Committee, to find that there were no such copies available and, indeed, that there was this difficulty in obtaining access to them. The Committee came to the conclusion, I think rightly, that it could not fulfil its duties to the House in examining the proposed revisions in these rules unless it could inspect a complete set of the rules. Therefore, I do not think that the Chancellor of the Duchy need in any way be apologetic if a certain amount of expense has been incurred in producing and printing the rules which, as the letter from his Department says, were prepared some time ago and would then have been printed.
There is one point on which I should like to differ from the Chancellor of the Duchy. He seemed to be under the impression that the rules of the High Court, now being revised, might be brought up to date and published in a revised form at a fairly early date, and he seemed to give that, as the letter from his Department gave, as the reason for not having printed them earlier.

Dr. Hill: It is because I have learned that they are not likely to be available at an early date that I have hastened with the printing of the complete rules.

Mr. Fletcher: I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman has said that, because I know something about the task of revising the High Court rules. It is a very long and laborious task. It was

started some years ago as a result of the recommendations of the Evershed Committee on the Practice and Procedure of the High Court, and that Committee recognised that it would be a lengthy undertaking.
So far as I know, no statement has been made and no suggestion has been thrown out either by the Lord Chancellor or by the Attorney-General that there is any likelihood of those rules being completely revised and made public for some considerable time. As I understand the position, when they are made it cannot be assumed that they will be non-contentious. They will themselves have to be submitted and laid before this House, and, as far as one can see, there may well be controversy and perhaps debate about them in the House before they are finally approved.
Therefore, I think that the Chancellor of the Duchy is very well advised not to have thought it right to postpone the printing of the Duchy rules until the Rules Committee of the High Court has completed its task, on which it is now engaged, of a complete overhaul of the rules of the High Court.
I conclude by saying, if I may, that we on the Select Committee feel that we have done a service not only to the House, but to the Chancellor of the Duchy and his Department, by reason of having brought this matter to public notice and ensuring that these rules, long out of date and not available, will, in future, be available.

Mr. C. Johnson: In view of the assurance and undertakings given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

COAL SUPPLIES, SHREWSBURY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. J. E. B. Hill.]

10.31 p.m.

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: In raising the question of the shortage of domestic coal supplies in my constituency of Shrewsbury, I will try to be as brief as I can. Perhaps I might start by giving a short history of the cases that have come to my notice. I have been aware of these shortages for some time. They were first brought to my notice on 12th January, when I received a letter signed by three coal merchants in my constituency.
In that letter the case was made out that
Deliveries over recent months amount to only 50 per cent. of consumers' requirements, and it has only been possible to carry out our obligations to our customers by using up the stocks we laid in prior to the collieries' annual summer holidays. These stocks are normally lifted during the months of peak demand, January, February and March, but already they have been cleared and there is no prospect of the trade receiving sufficient supplies from the National Coal Board to meet the existing crisis.
On 16th January—and I may point out in my own interest that the week-end intervened—I forwarded that letter to Mr. Alfred Robens, the Chairman of the Coal Board, for his comment.
A day later I received yet another letter from two more coal merchants in my constituency, asking, so to speak, for their names to be added to the previous letter. On 27th January, that is, ten days later, I received a letter from a coal merchant in my constituency who had taken the trouble to collect information from various other coal merchants. It was on that letter that I based a Question which I put to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power on 6th February. Among the coal merchants mentioned in that letter, five had varying amounts of coal of between two tons and, in the case of the one who had the most, 30 tons. Two had only 10 tons of domestic coal in stock, and seven said they had no coal in stock.
On 6th February, this matter was brought to the attention of the House and my hon. Friend answered several Questions from various hon. Members, including myself, on the subject of coal shortage. I noticed that the majority of the Questions came from hon. Members representing constituencies in the Midlands. My Question asked whether my hon. Friend's attention had been drawn to the shortage of domestic coal which had developed. In a subsequent question I specifically mentioned coal merchants in Shrewsbury. Immediately, we come up against the difficulty that the Minister holds no responsibility and accepts none for the day-to-day distribution of coal throughout the country. I shall have a little more to say about that later.
One thing that emerges quite clearly from all this—I think that this is a fair analysis—is that, whereas there may be shortages, there is not a general shortage of coal in the country. My hon. Friend said, for example:
I did not say that there was no shortage of house coal. I said there was no general shortage.
That is a masterful use of the English language. Subsequently my hon. Friend said:
A general shortage is a shortage which is very widespread. This one is not.
At the moment I am not interested in how widespread the general shortage is. I am interested in the shortage in my constituency in general.
My hon. Friend finally summed up the position in reply to my specific question about the problems of those coal merchants by saying:
Local supply is a matter for the Board and the trade.
He might well have added, in parenthesis, "Not for me".
The Board keeps its distribution arrangements as flexible as possible to meet local shortages where they occur."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1961; Vol. 634. c. 24–26.]
On 16th February, I received from Mr. Alfred Robens, the Chairman of the Coal Board, a reply to my letter of 16th January. I am anxious not to be unfair to Mr. Robens, whom we have all known in this House for many years. I will not read his letter, because I am sure it might easily form the basis of my hon. Friend's reply tonight, and I am sure that


he will give the Chairman of the Board a good innings on this matter.
My latest information about this comes from a coal merchant who wrote to me on 23rd February. He was not involved in any of the other letters. While having certain reservations, he writes:
I am not trying to convey to you that there was not a serious shortage of coal. There was and the position has not eased very much since but even now I know of some merchants who have stocks on the ground—others have none.
I think that I can safely say that for Shrewsbury a serious coal shortage has existed and exists at present.
What has been the cause? I believe that the cause has been that the Coal Board based the likely demand for 1960 on 1959. That might have been reasonable, in the first place, if 1959 had been a normal year. But it becomes even more out of line when one considers what the summer of 1960 was like. So we have had what must have been assessments based on a half-year, and they were applied to a cold wet year. Also, in the area during this winter we have had large amounts of exceptionally bad weather and flooding, which has necessitated the use of a great deal more coal for drying out.
I freely admit that there may have been some under-stocking, because stocking-up in coal costs money and some merchants cannot perhaps afford to stock up as much as they would like. Nevertheless, I feel certain that the Board has been taken by surprise. Has there been a general shortage? My hon. Friends says, "No." In some areas undoubtedly there is a shortage, as Questions in the House show. In some areas there may not be a shortage. If that is so, clearly, the distribution has broken down. I remember, as a boy, the somewhat Aladdin story of Alf's button. I think that the Chairman of the Coal Board had better start rubbing his button again so far as the distribution of coal is concerned.
There is, finally, the question of responsibility. I know perfectly well that the day-to-day running of the Coal Board cannot be effectively carried out from the House. I am not sure—one never is—when submitting Questions to the Table, exactly where responsibility

lies and to what extent it lies with the Chairman of the Coal Board and to what extent with the Minister of Power. I have read that when he was President of the United States, Mr. Harry Truman had a card over his desk which read, "The buck stops here". Whether we like it or not, and whether my hon. Friend accepts it or not, the buck does stop here.

10.41 p.m.

Mr. Jasper More: My constituency, which adjoins that of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt), who has stated the case so clearly, has no one single large distributing centre like Shrewsbury, but we have a number of small towns in some of which, ever since last June or July, there have been complaints of shortages and failure to supply. I have taken the opportunity to obtain an up-to-date report of the situation, and I would like briefly to give it to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary.
One merchant in Ludlow, who was in difficulty and for whom I intervened, has been interviewed by the National Coal Board and is now very satisfied. Another merchant now has no supplies at all, and, when he had them, was unable to deliver more than 5 cwt. to any customer. In the nearby town of Craven Arms, one merchant has no stocks at all and has had to limit deliveries to between 1 and 5 cwt. per customer, just to keep people going.
There are complaints of bad quality and much unsaleable slack and one merchant in Bridgnorth described the situation as desperate. This merchant was formerly able to build up his summer stocks to more than 1,000 tons, but this year he was able to get only 150 tons. It is said in Bridgnorth that if there were to be a cold spell in March the situation could be catastrophic.
I have had numerous letters from constituents in Church Stretton complaining both about shortages and inferior quality, and I have even had samples of the coal sent to me at the House. None of us desires to criticise the Coal Board unfairly, but if there are difficulties I appeal to the Board to be frank with the public and say what the difficulties are. By pure coincidence, today I received a letter from the Coal Board in connection with another matter and on


the envelope, in large red letters, were the words, "There is nothing so cosy as a nice coal fire". It would be more satisfactory, as we are now within three months of the next summer ordering season, for the Coal Board to tell the public, if necessary, what the difficulties are and what the public should expect for the coming year.

10.44 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. J. C. George): My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. More) have raised a matter which has been previously ventilated at Question Time. When I now repeat the answer then given, that local supply is a matter for the National Coal Board, I ask my hon. Friends to believe that that is not to imply any lack of sympathy for traders or consumers who are temporarily short of coal.
All of us are well aware of the inconvenience and even hardship which can arise from such a shortage. Hon. Members from the Midlands have told the House how flooding and other acts of nature have resulted in coal being consumed in that area in unusual quantities, so that shortages have developed where they could least be borne.
Nevertheless, on both constitutional and practical grounds I submit that it would be unsuitable for such matters to be discussed in detail in this House. The Coal Board is a fully autonomous body, responsible for the day-to-day working of its vast industry. The trade, in the main, is a free enterprise organisation, making its own plans, achieving its own successes and committing its own errors. But there is much more to be considered than that.
Coal distribution is a complex business, involving nearly 700 colleries whose products are distributed by rail, sea and by road to about 16,000 retailers and dealers, apart from the wholesalers and direct customers of the Board. The co-ordination of all this is a vast industrial enterprise the functioning of which cannot be properly understood without the benefit of a mass of factual information and expert experience. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury admitted, the day-to-day management of

this complex structure is recognised as being for the trade and the Board, and, with respect, I submit that the House would be well advised not to concern itself with the multitude of detail involved.
This does not mean that Members of Parliament cannot or do not obtain the fullest possible information about the position in their constituencies if difficulties arise. It is customary for them to write direct to the Chairman of the Board, who not only supplies information but is glad of the opportunity thereby given to investigate any difficulties and try to devise remedies for them. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury told the House that he has done that. He did not make hon. Members aware of the satisfaction he obtained, but I can assure him that it is always the intention of the Board to do everything in its power to iron out any difficulties brought to its notice by hon. Members on behalf of their constituents.
There is no general shortage of house coal. When I made that statement in answer to Questions it was a fact and it is a fact today. But there have been a number of reports of local shortages, especially in the Midlands. These arise in some measure because demands for house coal have been unexpectedly high for some time and the Board has made special efforts to increase the output of large coal from the mines and to increase dispatches to merchants out of current production and out of stocks. It would be wrong to say, as was said by my hon. Friend, that the Board planned demand in 1960 at the level of consumption in 1959, which was a warm year. It was recognised by all that the 1959 conditions were unlikely to recur and it would have been foolish to have anticipated a continuation of those conditions in 1960.
The Board was prepared for a normal winter and ordered its affairs in that expectation. But some concern was created by an unexpectedly high consumption of house coal in the summer. In the early autumn, my right hon. Friend, who keeps closely in touch with the trend of production, had talks on this matter with the Board, and, later, measures were set in train which produced the result I have just described. Generally speaking, it can be claimed that the Board has been successful in dealing with the situation so far this


winter and I shall try to present a picture of what it has done to achieve this.
The merchants began the winter with lower stocks of house coal, and here I take to task my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, who seemed to imply that in his area the merchants were unable to obtain stocks in the summer. That must have been a very rare experience, for the Board was ready, willing and eager to supply stocks of coal in the summer to any merchant.

Mr. Dan Jones: And at a cheaper price.

Mr. George: As the hon. Member says, at a cheaper price. Nevertheless, the merchants began their winter with lower stocks of coal, for whatever reason, than in 1959; actually, the total was 1·6 million tons compared with 2·06 million tons the year before and this was largely due to the high demand in the late summer.
The Coal Board stocks were only 0·75 million tons compared with 2·68 million tons the year before, but the latter was an abnormally high figure which resulted from the lack of demand in that warm summer. Demand continued to be high in November and December, merchants' disposals being 17 per cent. up on the previous year. During the first fifteen weeks of winter, merchants' disposals were 11 per cent. above the comparable period of 1959–10·23 million tons against 9·2 million tons.
However, during the first six weeks of 1961, demand showed only a 4 per cent. increase over the same period of last year. Merchants' stocks at 11th February were 816,000 tons, or only 106,000 tons below last year; but Coal Board stocks of screened large coal on the ground at the same date were 303,000 tans against 2 million tons a year ago. This was, again, an abnormally high figure, so we are not comparing like with like. The Board has made every effort to meet demand, partly by increased lifting from its own stocks, and partly by increasing the proportion of large coal in current production. The Board's despatches during the winter so far have been 9·26 million tons, or an increase of 840,000 tons, representing an increase of 10 per cent. over last year. So, it scarcely looks as if the Board planned for a recurrence of the difficulties of 1959.
During the last four weeks, for one reason or another, despatches have been at the same level as last year, 2·69 million tons, and some slight easing of the supply position has been noticed. The success of the Board's endeavours to increase the percentage of large coal in current production is shown by the following figures; in the last three months, the proportion of large coal in current production from the mines has ranged from 23·7 per cent. to 24·1 per cent., compared with 22·5 per cent. a year ago. This may seem only a small improvement, but I would ask my hon. Friend to realise that even a 1 per cent. increase represents about 140,000 tons extra large coal each month—a significant contribution to make up for any shortage which may be existing.
To increase the percentage of large coal in current production at a time when the drive for increased mechanisation is gathering momentum is no easy task. Meohanisation, as currently practised inevitably leads to less large coal being produced and, therefore, some deceleration of mechanisation has to be enforced in order to help the mines to cater for the growing demand; a greater demand than in 1960.
Other measures requiring great diligence from management have had to be introduced, and the awareness of all involved of their responsibility towards the householder is clearly evidenced by the figures which I have just given. The Board also took still more precautions to avoid possible supply hazards. It was not in the least complacent about the position in the winter of 1960, or the conditions prevailing in 1959–60. During the 1959–60 winter, waggon shortage caused significant upsets, and to try to avoid a repetition this winter, the Board, and the British Transport Commission, appointed a joint committee of officials. This committee has met weekly, and still meets weekly, keeps an eye on events, and takes whatever measures seem appropriate for dealing with them.
Some months ago arrangements were made whereby the Commission would move, if necessary, large quantities of coal by road, to leave more wagons and train crews available for house coal needs. These arrangements have operated with great success and to the


satisfaction of the Coal Board, which is very appreciative of the valuable cooperation, so readily given, by the Commission. Large tonnages of coal have been diverted from the railways to the roads, mainly to power stations, and railway operational difficulties have been considerably eased thereby.
Even after that has been said it might be the opinion of some that because stocks are substantially lower overall than at the same time last year there is a general shortage, but I am assured that stocks are still well above the level when a general shortage is threatened. Everyone regrets that local shortages have occurred, and no attempt is made to deny that they have occurred, but despite the low level of stocks the Coal Board considers that supplies should be sufficient to meet demand during the remainder of this winter, unless there is a prolonged spell of cold weather, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, or some other unexpected abnormal development.
The question of large coal supplies in an era of increasing mechanisation

will be one of continuing concern to the Board and my right hon. Friend. The House will be glad to know that special plans are already being made for next winter, whereby a higher percentage of large coal will be produced by the collieries which traditionally supply a large percentage in current output. This concentration upon special collieries, as opposed to the diffusion of effort over the whole country, will—it is believed—yield much better results.
These special endeavours will be pursued continuously throughout the year, as against concentrated endeavours over a shorter period, as in the past. In addition, a higher proportion of cutter loaders to be installed in the mines in future will be of a type causing less degradation in the winning and loading of the coal.
With these changes it is hoped that the future level of output will meet the anticipated level of demand, but no guarantee can ever be given that local shortages will not again occur.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at three minutes to Eleven o'clock.